Jean de Metz kept the purse which was filled by the crown.[904] She had also certain valets in her service. A squire, one Jean d'Aulon, whom the King gave her for a steward, joined her at Blois.[905] He was the poorest squire of the realm. He was entirely dependent on the Sire de La Tremouille, who lent him money; but he was well known for his honour and his wisdom.[906] Jeanne attributed the defeats of the French to their riding forth accompanied by bad women and to their taking God's holy name in vain. And this opinion, far from being held by her alone, prevailed among persons of learning and religion; according to whom the disaster of Nicopolis was occasioned by the presence of prostitutes in the army, and by the cruelty and dissoluteness of the knights.[907] [Footnote 904: Extracts from the Accounts of Hemon Raguier, _Trial_, vol. v, pp. 257, 258.] [Footnote 905: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 211. D'Aulon had seen her at Poitiers.] [Footnote 906: _Ibid._, p. 15. De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. ii, p. 292, note 3. The loans mentioned occurred later, but there is no reason to believe that they were the first. Duc de La Tremoille, _Les La Tremouille pendant cinq siecles, Guy VI et Georges_ (1346-1446), Nantes, 1890, pp. 196, 201.] [Footnote 907: Juvenal des Ursins, year 1396.] On several occasions, between 1420 and 1425, the Dauphin had forbidden cursing and denying and blaspheming the name of God, of the Virgin Mary and of the saints under penalty of a fine and of corporal punishment in certain cases. The decrees embodying this prohibition asserted that wars, pestilence, and famine were caused by blasphemy and that the blasphemers were in part responsible for the sufferings of the realm.[908] Wherefore the Maid went among the men-at-arms, exhorting them to turn away the women who followed the army, and to cease taking the Lord's name in vain. She besought them to confess their sins and receive divine grace into their souls, maintaining that their God would aid them and give them the victory if their souls were right.[909] [Footnote 908: _Ordonnances des rois de France_, vol. xi, p. 105; vol. xiii, p. 247. S. de Bouillerie, _La repression du blaspheme dans l'ancienne legislation_, in the _Revue historique et archeologique du Maine_, 1884, pp. 369 _et seq._ De Beaucourt, _Histoire de Charles VII_, vol. i, p. 370; vol. ii, p. 189. A. Longnon, _Paris pendant la domination anglaise_, Paris, 1878, in 8vo, pp. 11, 56.] [Footnote 909: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 78, 104, 105. _Chronique de la Pucelle_, p. 283. Very early she was mentioned in connection with La Hire, the most valiant of the French, and it was imagined that she taught him to confess and to cease swearing. These are pretty stories (_Trial_, vol. iii, p. 32; vol. iv, p. 327).]