01 The record
- 39/1 (DECODE images 1–8): the original, in French, signed Lachaulx. The five cipher passages are A (end of f. 3v), b (f. 5r to 5v, a full page), C (f. 6r), D (f. 7v to 8r) and E (f. 9r). Some signs carry interlinear glosses, for example “que sont quatre mille hommes” on f. 6r. The address and endorsement read “A l’empereur” and “1522, de Victoria, de la Chaulx”.
- 39/2 (images 9–11): the decipherment, in the same A–E order.
DECODE records the language as Spanish and gives 1 January 1522, the first day of its 1522 date range. Both are wrong.
02 The cipher and the check
The cipher is a substitution in cursive signs and digits, with no word division. Passage A opens E o+ o φ 2 ꝑ 3 m4 7 o ꝝ ꝭ o+ ▷ c ɗo ʆ ɗ ꝑ…. Against the decipherment that is c-o-m-b-i-e-n q-u-e j-e v-o-u-l-d-r-o-i-e. Every word gets one sign per letter, and e is written with three different signs (ꝑ, o, ꝭ). The key was not rebuilt. That would mean transcribing some 1,500 signs from 1024-pixel scans for a text that was deciphered in 1522.
03 The 1522 decipherment
Transcribed from 39/2. Grade M (moderate): transcribed from the scan, abbreviations expanded. Doubtful words are in brackets.
A. Combien que je vouldroie mectre mon ame en gaige que vous estes la personne de ce monde quil ayme le plus, mais ne doubtez que luy estre a Rome il sera sollicite et practique de tant de costez que lon luy pourroit [desmouvoir] quelque chose dont il ne se [retireroit]…
b. Sire, entant que touche le partement du pape… le lieu de Barcelone ou il entendoit assembler son armee, la peste sest mise de sorte quil fauldra quil aille a Tarragone ou a Cartagena… Il actend davoir deux caracques qui sont en ung havre vers Landelousye… et ma dit que sy voz galleres de Naples venoient, il est du tout delibere avec icelles et les nefz de dela soy [embarquer] et passer… mais il le fault tenir secret… Je suis tousjours de loppinion que vous ay escript quil ne partira de tout le mois de juing… le nombre de gens quil a entreprins de mener, que sont quatre mille hommes… il fait courre le bruit quil emmenera vingt mille…
In passage A, La Chaulx would stake his soul that the Pope loves the Emperor above anyone. He warns that at Rome Adrian will be pressed from so many sides that he may commit himself to something he cannot undo. Passage b is about the Pope’s sailing. Plague at Barcelona moves the muster to Tarragona or Cartagena. Adrian is waiting for two carracks in an Andalusian port and for the galleys of Naples, and La Chaulx does not expect him to leave before July. He will take 4,000 men and let it be rumoured that he takes 20,000. Adrian in fact sailed from Tarragona in August. Passages C–E, on money and the Cortes, the Infanta Catherine and Portugal, and the news from France, England and the Swiss, are given in 39/2 and summarised in the notes.
04 What remains open
- A full transcription of 39/2, sections C–E. This is transcription, not decipherment.
- The key: signs to letters, from an alignment of the whole of passage A or b.
- Whether Gachard printed the letter in Correspondance de Charles-Quint et d’Adrien VI (Brussels, 1859) from another copy. This was not checked.
05 Sources
- DECODE record R1187: images behind login, Biblioteca Nacional de España, not public domain.
- L.-P. Gachard (ed.), Correspondance de Charles-Quint et d’Adrien VI, Brussels, 1859: the mission’s context.
Notes, the transcription and the profile are in targets/poupet1522/.