tnote 1630: _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 164.]

It was only in the neighbourhood of towns or close to fortresses and
castles, within sight of the watchman's eye as he looked from the top
of tower or belfry, that land was cultivated. On the approach of
men-at-arms, the watchman rang his bell or sounded his horn to warn
the vine-dressers or the ploughmen to flee to a place of safety. In
many districts the alarm bell was so frequent that oxen, sheep, and
pigs, of their own accord went into hiding, as soon as they heard
it.[1631]

[Footnote 1631: Thomas Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII_, chap. vi. A.
Tuetey, _Les ecorcheurs sous Charles VII_, Montbeliard, 1874, 2 vols.
in 8vo, _passim_. H. Lepage, _Episodes de l'histoire des routiers en
Lorraine_ (1362-1446), in _Journal d'archeologie lorraine_, vol. xv,
pp. 161 _et seq._ Le P. Denifle, _La desolation des eglises_,
_passim_. H. Martin et Lacroix, _Histoire de Soissons_, p. 318,
_passim_. G. Lefevre-Pontalis, _Episodes de l'invasion anglaise. La
guerre de partisans dans la Haute Normandie_ (1424-1429), in
_Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes_, vol. liv, pp. 475-521; vol. lv,
pp. 258-305; vol. lvi, pp. 432-508.]

In the plains especially, which were easy of access, the Armagnacs and
the English had destroyed everything. For some distance from Beauvais,
from Senlis, from Soissons, from Laon, they had caused the fields to
lie fallow, and here and there shrubs and underwood were springing up
over land once cultivated.--"Noel! Noel!"

Throughout the duchy of Valois, the peasants were abandoning the open
country and hiding in woods, rocks, and quarries.[1632]

[Footnote 1632: Pardon issued by King Henry VI to an inhabitant of
Noyant, in Stevenson, _Letters and Papers_, vol. i, pp. 23, 31. F.
Brun, _Jeanne d'Arc et le capitaine de Soissons_, note iii, p. 41.]

Many, in order to gain a livelihood, did like Jean de Bonval, the
tailor of Noyant near Soissons, who, despite wife and children, joined
a Burgundian band, which went up and down the country thieving,
pillaging, and, when occasion offered, smoking out the folk who had
taken refuge in churches. On one day Jean and his comrades took two
hogsheads of corn, on another six or seven cows; on another a goat and
a cow, on another a silver belt, a pair of gloves and a pair of shoes;
on another a bale of eighteen ells of cloth to make cloaks withal. And
Jean de Bonval said that within his knowledge many a man of worship