01 The letter
| Shelfmark | BnF Clairambault 460 · graphic cipher, pp53–55 |
|---|---|
| Sender | Not established |
| Recipient | Duke of Bouillon |
| Date | 6–8 August 1650, Madrid |
| Language | French |
| Report status | 3/3 pages transcribed; 3/3 pages deciphered |
| Ciphertext | 949 elements, 941 identified (99.2%) |
02 The key
54 symbols, 50 letter signs, 4 unidentified
03 The decipherment
p55 — postscript
un courrier à Mr de Condé? Don Louis lui escrit et à Fonsaldagne pour les haster d'antr[er] en France et marcher droit à Paris.
Translation. a courier to Mr de Condé? Don Louis writes to him and to Fonsaldagne to urge them to enter France and march straight to Paris.
04 Plaintext and other sources
Where a decipherment or clear copy already existed, as George Lasry gives it:
- Interlinear plaintext
- Interlinear plaintext on pp53–55.
05 Our check
This result is George Lasry’s. This project did not re-solve the cipher: it checked one sample against the Gallica image and recorded what it found.
- Batch A. Image checked: none (no Gallica link in entry; Clairambault 460 pp53-55 checked only via his p55 crop)
- Folio matches the report: unclear; cipher present: yes
- What we checked: p55 crop last cipher line "x h e [i] 13 | 3 | [box] 3 h m 8" with his system-A table (x=d, h=r, e=o, 13=t, 3=a, box=p, m=i, 8=s) = "droit a paris", matching interlinear "marcher droit a paris" and his excerpt
- Verdict: partly confirmed (method key recovered based on adjacent plaintext, extent complete). The check is a sample, not a re-solution.
- Notes: Folio identity not checked on Gallica. Interlinear plaintext throughout pp53-55; reading largely restates it. Same volume as clair460alpha.
06 Sources
- George Lasry, with ChatGPT Astra 6 and Anthropic Opus 5.5, BnF cipher research, 10 October 2026 (sent to Daniel Bourdeau on 13 October 2026 for publication here), p. 69; his other items are listed on his contributor card.
- The working folder:
targets/bouillon1650/(his entry as extracted from the report, our spot-check,profile.json).