Toward the end of the sixteenth century the French consolidated their codebreaking prowess with the arrival of François Viète, who took particular pleasure in cracking Spanish ciphers. Spain’s cryptographers, who appear to have been naive compared with their rivals elsewhere in Europe, could not believe it when they discovered that their messages were transparent to the French. King Philip II of Spain went as far as petitioning the Vatican, claiming that the only explanation for Viète’s cryptanalysis was that he was an “archfiend in league with the devil.” Philip argued that Viète should be
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