TheCodeBreakers
again."
One might think that cipher clerks might have corrected such garbles
by trial and error, especially in those more leisurely days. But they were
not cryptanalysts and may not have known, or have wanted to know,
how to make the necessary trials. 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
annaabi.ee 
