They went by twos and threes, uniting sometimes and entering a village or surrounding a farmhouse at night, and taking what they wanted.

The people were, however, terribly poor, and they were able to obtain but little beyond scanty supplies of flour, and occasionally a few gold or silver trinkets.

Many other bands of plunderers had passed along, in the course of the summer, and the robbers themselves were often moved to pity by the misery that they everywhere met with.
When in small parties they were obliged to avoid entering any villages, for once or twice furious attacks were made upon those who did so, the women joining the men in arming themselves with any weapon that came to hand, and in falling upon the strangers.
Only once did they succeed in obtaining plunder of value.

They had visited a village, but found it contained nothing worth taking.

One of the women said: "Why do you trouble poor people like us?
There is the count's chateau three miles away.