TheCodeBreakers
Serious garbles would thus render the
dispatch unreadable until a courier went out and returned with a
correction; thus the cipher would have prevented communication instead
of safeguarding it.
6. The Era of the Black Chambers
REALMONT was under siege. The royal army, under Henry II of Bourbon,
Prince of Conde, had invested it at dawn Wednesday, April 19, 1628. But
the Huguenots, inside the battlements of the little town in southern
France, were putting up a stiff defense. They cannonaded Conde from a
tower and contemptuously rejected his demands that they surrender,
saying that they would die instead. Conde brought up five big cannon
from Albi, a dozen miles away, and on Sunday ranged them in an
ominous line facing Realmont.
That same day his soldiers captured an inhabitant of the town who
was trying to carry an enciphered message to Huguenot forces outside.
None of Conde's men could unriddle it, but during the week the prince
annaabi.ee 
