The peremptory orders from the Government to hold Orleans had shaken General d'Aurelle's original determination. When the mass of the XVth Corps arrived there in the forenoon, he was anxious to make a final stand. But the necessary orders could not be transmitted to the Corps of the right wing, nor carried out by those of the left; and by five o'clock the General in command was convinced of the futility of any further resistance. The artillery of the XVth Corps was in the first instance forwarded to La Ferte St. Aubin; the infantry followed. The XXth Corps, as we have seen, was at Jargeau; the XVIIIth recrossed the Loire at Sully; the XVIth and XVIIth moved off westward in the direction of Beaugency, but remained on the right bank of the river. The two days' battle had cost the Germans 1700 men; the French lost 20,000, of whom 1800 were taken prisoners. Their large army lately massed before Orleans, was now split up into three separate bodies. FOOTNOTES: [52] Commanding Artillery of IXth Corps. [53] The northern suburb of Orleans. OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS SOUTH, EAST, AND WEST. The troops were too much exhausted for immediate pursuit in any of these three directions. It was ordered that only the 6th Cavalry Division, reinforced by an infantry detachment of the 18th Division, should follow up the enemy making to the southward, ascertain his whereabouts, and destroy the concentration of the railways from Bourges, Orleans and Tours at the Vierzon junction. This Cavalry was in quarters to the north of the city; the French XVth Corps had a considerable start of it, and the main body of the latter had reached Salbris, when, on December 6th, two days after the battle, General von Schmidt (commanding 14th Brigade, 6th Cavalry Division) arrived by a forced march at La Ferte St. Aubin. Here he found a detachment of the 18th Division, which had already driven the French rear-guard back on La Motte Beuvron, but was now recalled to the Loiret. Only two companies of the 36th Regiment and one of pioneers joined the further advance, and followed the cavalry partly in waggons and partly on gun-limbers. On the 7th, under direct orders from Tours, the French Corps left the high road to the south, and made a flank march of twenty miles in an easterly direction to Aubigny Ville. The cavalry, supported to the best of their power by its artillery and the small infantry detachment, had a sharp fight with the French rear-guard at Nouan le Fuzelier, and again in the evening at Salbris, in which the French finally had the best of it. The neighbourhood being very thinly populated, the Division had to return in the night to Nouan, to find shelter from the bitter winter weather.