His debtors were the King and a multitude of nobles high and low.[608] He was therefore a powerful personage.

In those difficult days he rendered the crown services self-interested, but none the less valuable.

From January to August, 1428, he advanced sums amounting to about twenty-seven thousand livres for which he received lands and castles as security.[609] Fortunately the Royal Council included a number of Jurists and Churchmen who were good business men.

One of them, an Angevin, Robert Le Macon, Lord of Treves, of plebeian birth, had entered the Council during the Regency.

He was the first among those of lowly origin who served Charles VII so ably that he came to be called The Well Served (_Le Bien Servi_).[610] Another, the Sire de Gaucourt, had aided his King in war.[611] [Footnote 608: Clairambault, _Titres, Scelles_, vol.205, pp.