Roger Frontenac () was a

French navy The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces i ...

officer and a scholar of

Nostradamus Michel de Nostredame (December 1503 – July 1566), usually Latinisation of names, Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French Astrology, astrologer, apothecary, physician, and reputed Oracle, seer, who is best known for his book ''Les Prophéti ...

' prophecies. He proposed an interpretation system for the text of ''

Les Prophéties ''Les Prophéties'' (''The Prophecies'') is a collection of prophecies by French physician Nostradamus, the first edition of which appeared in 1555 by the publishing house Macé Bonhomme. His most famous work is a collection of poems, quatrains, ...

'', based upon a form of

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logy, -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of Adversary (cryptography), ...

known as the Vigenère table.

Biography

Roger Frontenac, as a navy officer, was in charge of military ciphers. After World War II, he began to study the work of Nostradamus, treating it as any other message from an enemy. He searched for any hint about decoding methods. The name of Nostradamus' son Cesar led Frontenac to suspect the use of a

Caesar cipher In cryptography, a Caesar cipher, also known as Caesar's cipher, the shift cipher, Caesar's code, or Caesar shift, is one of the simplest and most widely known encryption techniques. It is a type of substitution cipher in which each letter in t ...

''La clef secrète de Nostradamus''

He published his treatise about Nostradamus' letters and works, ('The Secret Key of Nostradamus'), in 1950. In the book, Frontenac professed his belief in Nostradamus as a true

prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divinity, divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings ...

, who made correct foretellings, and that the centuries () contained true predictions about future events until the year 3797. However, Frontenac contended that those predictions were hidden, mixed, and not understandable before the events occurred. His conclusions were based on a combination of several cryptographic methods, including a systematic alteration in the metrical order of

quatrain A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four Line (poetry), lines. Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India ...

s' texts. This process was inspired by Nostradamus' use of the expression ('to mix in order to make them obscure') in a letter. The systematic reordering of quatrains, according to Frontenac, could be achieved using a couple of combined

keys Key, Keys, The Key or The Keys may refer to: Common uses * Key (cryptography), a piece of information needed to encode or decode a message * Key (instrument), a component of a musical instrument * Key (lock), a device used to operate a lock * ...

, and he stated that he managed to find the first key (a typical Vigenère text, easy to hold in memory), that was the Latin phrase:

References

Bibliography

*Frontenac, Roger, '' La clef secrète de Nostradamus'', Les Editions Denoel, Paris 1950

External links

*
La chiave di Frontenac
*
Website by Cesare Ottavio Ramotti
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frontenac, Roger French non-fiction writers French cryptographers Nostradamus Year of birth missing Year of death missing French male writers French male non-fiction writers

Biography

''La clef secrète de Nostradamus''

See also

References

Bibliography

External links