TheCodeBreakers
Commander Juan de Moreo and Ambassador Manosse, fell into Henry's
hands.
It was in cipher, but he had in his government at the time one
Francois Viete, the seigneur de la Bigotiere, a 49-year-old lawyer from
Poitou who had risen to become counselor of the parlement, or court of
justice, of Tours and a privy counselor to Henry. Viete had for years
amused himself with mathematics as a hobby—"Never was a man more
born for mathematics," said Tallement des Reaux. As the man who first
used letters for quantities in algebra, giving that study its characteristic
look, Viete is today remembered as the Father of Algebra. A year before,
he had solved a Spanish dispatch addressed to Alessandro Farnese, the
Duke of Parma, who headed the Spanish forces of the League. Henry
turned the new intercepts over to him to see if Viete could repeat his
success.
He could and did. The plaintext of the long letter from Moreo, in
annaabi.ee 
