The learned did not greatly appreciate the style of this letter. The Bastard of Orleans thought the words very simple; and a few years later a good French jurist pronounced it coarse, heavy, and badly arranged.[898] We cannot aspire to judge better than the jurist and the Bastard, both men of erudition. Nevertheless, we wonder whether it were not that her manner of expression seemed bad to them, merely because it differed from the style of legal documents. True it is that the letter from Blois indicates the poverty of the French prose of that time when not enriched by an Alain Chartier; but it contains neither term nor expression which is not to be met with in the good authors of the day. The words may not be correctly ordered, but the style is none the less vivacious. There is nothing to suggest that the writer came from the banks of the Meuse; no trace is there of the speech of Lorraine or Champagne.[899] It is clerkly French. [Footnote 898: _Per unam litteram suo materno idiomate confectam, verbis bene simplicibus_, _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 7, evidence of the Bastard of Orleans. Mathieu Thomassin, _Registre Delphinal_, in the _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 306.] [Footnote 899: On the contrary it contains forms which would never have been penned by a native of Picardy, Burgundy, Lorraine, or Champagne, such as the participle _envoyee_. Both the grammar and the writing are those of a French clerk. (Contributed by M. E. Langlois.)] While Isabelle de Vouthon had gone on a pilgrimage to Puy, her two youngest children, Jean and Pierre, had set out for France to join their sister, with the intention of making their fortunes through her or the King. Likewise, Brother Nicolas of Vouthon, Jeanne's cousin german, a monk in priest's orders in the Abbey of Cheminon, joined the young saint.[900] To have thus attracted her kinsfolk before giving any sign of her power, Jeanne must have had witnesses on the banks of the Meuse; and certain venerable ecclesiastical personages, as well as noble lords of Lorraine, must have answered for her reputation in France. Such guarantors of the truth of her mission were doubtless those who had instructed her in and accredited her by prophecy. Perhaps Brother Nicolas of Vouthon was himself of the number. [Footnote 900: _Trial_, vol. v, p. 252. E. de Bouteiller and G. de Braux, _Nouvelles recherches sur la famille de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. xx, 9, 10. [Document of very doubtful authenticity.]] In the army she was regarded as a holy maiden. Her company consisted of a chaplain, Brother Jean Pasquerel;[901] two pages, Louis de Coutes and Raymond;[902] her two brethren, Pierre and Jean; two heralds, Ambleville and Guyenne;[903] two squires, Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy. [Footnote 901: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 101.] [Footnote 902: _Ibid._, pp. 65, 67, 124. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 277. A. de Villaret, _Louis de Coutes, page de Jeanne d'Arc_, Orleans, 1890, 8vo.] [Footnote 903: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 26, 27.]