Reynier’s 2nd Corps 10,251 men Junot’s 8th Corps 9,794 ” Loison’s Division 4,734 ” Ney’s other Divisions, horse and foot 11,066 ” Montbrun’s Reserve Cavalry 2,435 ” Conroux’s Division of the 9th Corps 5,000 ” Artillery Reserves, Train, Sappers, Marine Battalion, &c. 5,855 ” ------ Total 49,135 men all exclusive of sick and wounded. The road Leiria-Coimbra was moreover both the best and the shortest of all those that led from the position now reached by Wellington’s marching columns to the valley of the Mondego. By following it, and hustling hard the French column that had taken it, the commander of the Allies might hope to reach Coimbra in time to prevent the French from taking up a secure position on the lower Mondego, and establishing themselves in cantonments on its banks. For it was his main object to turn them away from Coimbra and the coast-plain, and to force them up into the eastern mountains and towards the borders of Spain. At first he did not think that the line of the Mondego could be held against the retreating French by the trifling Portuguese militia force that lay behind it--Trant’s seven battalions at Coimbra, Wilson’s four at Peñacova, which did not amount together to more than 5,000 or 6,000 troops of very inferior quality. He issued orders to those generals to retire, without committing themselves to an attempt to defend the line of the river--Trant had better go behind the Vouga, Wilson might retire on Vizeu; both would ultimately join the northern reserves under Baccelar, and co-operate with that general in defending the city of Oporto[167]. But Wellington hoped that matters would never reach the point at which the safety of Oporto came in question, for he thought that he would be pressing the rear of the French so hard in a few days, that they would be thinking of other things than taking the offensive against northern Portugal. He would do his best to thrust them north-eastward, towards the frontiers of Spain. As a matter of fact we shall see that he more than fulfilled his own forecast, for the French were so hotly pursued that they never succeeded in crossing the Mondego or seizing Coimbra. When they had reached its gates, Masséna refused to take the risk of passing the river at a moment when his rear was in such dire trouble that the whole army would have been in danger of destruction, if he had been attacked when the actual operation of passage was in progress.