To maintain even the handful of forces left to him Bedford was driven to have recourse to mere forays which did little but increase the general misery.

The north of France indeed was being fast reduced to a desert by the bands of marauders which traversed it.

The husbandmen fled for refuge to the towns till these in fear of famine shut their gates against them.

Then in their despair they threw themselves into the woods and became brigands in their turn.

So terrible was the devastation that two hostile bodies of troops failed at one time even to find one another in the desolate Beauce.