2012 by Donald E. Pusch. Some rights reserved.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Vaudreuil's Code Book

Donald E. Pusch In 1757, with the French and Indian War then in its fourth year, a set of codes was created by the French naval ministry and provided to the governor general of New France, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, for use in protecting his communications with the minister. The code, of a type called a two-part nomenclator, allowed Vaudreuil's administrative staff to encode his dispatches, producing documents that consisted mostly of numbers. Following is the first paragraph of one such letter, written from Montreal on August 13, 1760, less than a month before 1 Vaudreuil's complete surrender of the colony. Monseigneur, 356.661.198.107.590.271.453.341.51.51.674. 235.214.471.235.642.594.204.235.251.411.309. 512.341.235.688.123.336.235.642.673.55.642. 217.430.421.235.247.235.547.356.661.529.67. 626.642.354.608.192.674. The coding method, although simple to use, provided a moderately robust means of protecting sensitive correspondence. How it works is explained in detail in the author's article, "Kerlrec's Cipher: The Code Book of Louisiana's Last French Governor," Louisiana History, vol. 49 (fall 2008), pp. 46380. That article reported the results of the author's investigation of the French two-part nomenclator used throughout the Seven Years' War (of which the French and Indian War was a subset) by Louis de Kerlrec, then governor of Louisiana. Vaudreuil's code was similar in structure but contained different code elements. The basis for the code is a set of letters, word fragments, and whole words, each of which is assigned a number from 1 to 700. In the example, the encoded text can be decoded as follows: 356 ja 661 i 198 trai 107 te 235 s 688 different 235 s 608 en 590 pa 642 de 123 es 247 compte 192 rend 271 r 594 ce 336 partie 235 s 674 re 453 des 204 qui 235 s 547 que 341 le 235 s 642 de 356 ja 51 t 251 est 673 la 661 i 51 t 411 pas 55 colonie 529 eu 674 re 309 se 642 de 67 l

235 214 471 s particulier e 512 dans 217 puis 626 honneur 341 le 430 les 642 de 235 s 421 dernier 354 vous

The plaintext French is thus: "J'ai trait par des lettres particulires de ce qui s'est pas[s] dans les diffrentes parties de la colonie depuis les derniers comtes que j'ai eu l'honneur de vous en rendre."

Vaudreuil to Minister, Montreal, August 13, 1760. ANOM, Colonies C

11A

105, fol. 147r52r.

Or in English: "I have dealt, in specific letters, with that which took place in various parts of the colony since the last report on it that I have had the honor to render to you." The letter continues on for several pages describing the desperate circumstances that existed at Montreal, Trois Rivires, and Ristigouche, and on Lakes Ontario and Champlain as the English accelerated their efforts to subdue the entire colony. It also describes Vaudreuil's ongoing redeployment of the land and naval resources still available to him, the details of which were worth protecting. In regard to the degree of security that Vaudreuil's code provided, it should be noted that the code itself was created in 1757 but was still in use in the fall of 1760. Modern security practices would dictate much more frequent code changes in order to reduce the amount of information that would be compromised should the code be broken. But apparently this was of little concern to the French during this era. The code used by Governor Kerlrec in Louisiana was active without modifications from 1755 to 1762. Had the code been broken early in this period, any encoded letters that fell into enemy hands after that point could have been easily read. Breaking such a code would certainly have been possible. Also, at the naval ministry, when an encoded letter was received, a cipher clerk would decode it and annotate, directly on the face of the encoded letter, the corresponding plaintext, which was usually written between the lines of code. The letter would then be circulated to various officials for action. Should a few of these parallel texts fall into enemy hands, the entire code book would have been compromised. In fact, this is exactly how the author was able to reconstruct Kerlrec's code book. In the case of Vaudreuil's code book, reconstruction was not necessary, because the code book survives, held 11E today at the Archives nationales d'outre mer (ANOM) at Aix-en-Provence. It is cited as Colonies C 10, fol. 280 (although the folio numbers are somewhat irregular). For the benefit of scholars interested in performing a firsthand decoding of Governor Vaudreuil's encoded lettersof which there are only a fewthe author presents here a complete transcript of the associated table dchiffr (decoding table). Canada 1757 Chiffre avec M. Le M[arqu]is de Vaudreil gouverneur et lieutenant gnral de la Nouvelle France Dchiffrant [ANOM, Colonies C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 gouvernement campagne etranger garnison intention magazin necessaire navigation possession ouvrage affaire par at ordon tre La Loisianne 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 favorable surplus denre menace ba limite fregate soient Erie b barque or glace enfin chevelure genre
11E

10, fol. 280]

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 bon peut souhait place an facil surpris arme Champlain savoir demande je he monsieur convoy rien 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 62 63 nt flote t ma cour barri colonie to Illinois hache toutes bu fonction bruit ordinaire suite

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115

car pre gloire l inter etre cargaison li banc port etabli apparence ir mention avec ceux do malheur y oi fer er chose lache tard incursion libert da Caroline neutralit action isle suivant sentiment comme leon membre apres compagnie prix son contre ex te quoique canon present hu si azile Hollande eau

116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 163 164 165 166 167 168

praticalbe suffi Anglois faon quel motif quantit es j indispensable on ot soin jo va liaison ve oit retraitte per retard front tien autre Espagnol ob piece depart pour meme cu nos ils querelle saint navire ton Choeguen air gu suspect rempli prompt ge ou obstacle a mal ration habitude vie dont

169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220

temps ailleurs sa heure lard bien bou difficulte grace vo sur trop reciproque gle gens fois quelque juge no sauvage Ontario change non rend tion roit vrai assez quitte trai beau jour guerrier gouverneur approuve qui moins vin operation introdu vers notre negli long vu particulier tu ide puis veil gain leger

221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272

receu Franois matiere tout Canada souvent cr flute be comman peu deja pas qu s acte detachement op prisonnier hi votre quartier it seul intelligence leur compte soupon ap Montreal est gi hardi nu mo extraordinaire gre mu science g septentrionale sujet encore borne quand deffen circonstance disposition nous commerce r ranon

273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324

Espagne mi ait mer fu etat force profit Loisbourg plein c dessein homme atten bastion majest os mais recrue mois haine Oabache doit chacun incessament neutre qu'il sault trou ecri om traite aussi ont negociant voi se terre possible Quebec marque bois fait Terre neuve oc progres tranquil veriffi bord u ju ouil

325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 346 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376

nouveau k volont ne pu ga mauvais paix raison mort go partie loi maniere riviere mesure le conseil fond source couvert sorte escadre Philadelphie ville ent pris et su vous premier ja hyver z charge fusil nombre jalousie plusieurs fin haut habitant croi bataillon occasion tort reine feu vent pied sou employ

377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428

Ohio lettre depen semblable sort secret bi ruine habi mon depuis chef m offre doute retour succes entre livre outre lai tonneau France ni intrigue soit represaille oient arrangement cent jamais usage attaque marine pas ro Huron fort egard superieur ha genie pe fleuve dernier pretention f el bas in blesse don

429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480

manoeuvre les sans of environ point La Martinique envoy afin peuple ligne oppo loin necessite golphe aux ca fortification lo nom projet nation voye fret des ressource abord util meilleur tour union ombrage Angleterre general quelqu'un roy plus qualit ti negociation fo propos e pi moyen vivre sang objet corps n montagne vi

481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532

recours batiment lu accord igno ru guerre Iroquois regle pelleterie libre hors recolte un humeur Chambli abri elle service condition ois pretexte sens augmen am main manque question provision mouvement tres dans discipline du brique lui Virginie ar langue ordre hostilit obli risque effort cause poste p contraire eu champ plan fidel

533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584

con Anticostie di opinion toujours village accident faveur doi nouvelle poudre d ensemble concert que ci saison baye quelle lors obser quelquefois garde fi vaisseau batterie plomb conjoncture ces Gasp mille ab il biscuit revolte fe ble decla aucun eux o certain flame droit foi menage offense effet faire beaucoup St. Domingue quint

585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636

ho artillerie transport gout frontiere pa secours lieu anne ce nord tous bo avis bre devant vain tant rang munition raport ennemi prcaution en jusques na pavillon gros cas fa em for quant prochain cha Abenakis ri situation marche corsaire Trois Rivieres honneur chez soldat preparatif v celle ainsi fau egal h ai

637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688

naufrage co com officier escorte de peine so facheux milice voir besoin troupe lac Plaisance voisin ra grand pesche q au ete ac hazard i coup ustenciles pendant allie Michigan rupture forn danger im batteau me la re difficile voyage quoi che eclaircissement gagne al evenement ment detail po ta marchand different

689 690 691

x avant inconvenient

692 693 694

fourniture subordination trahison

695 696 697

neanmoins occurrence l'Acadie

698 699 700

habitation Hollandois marchandise