The Prussians had lost twenty thousand men, missing, wounded, and dead, and it required vigorous treatment to restore Bluecher. But all night the army marched, and in the morning Buelow, having found his direction, was near Beauderet and Sauvinieres, within easy reach at Gembloux. The retreat continued throughout the seventeenth. It was a move of the greatest daring, since the line was over a broken country almost destitute of roads, and, the old base of supplies having been abandoned, the men had to starve until Gneisenau could secure another by way of Louvain. The army bore its hardships well; there was no straggling or demoralization, and the splendor of success makes doubly brilliant the move which confounded Napoleon's plans. Never dreaming at first that his foe had withdrawn elsewhere than along his natural line of supply toward Liege, the Emperor considered the separation of the two allies as complete, and after carefully deliberating throughout the long interval he allowed for collecting his troops and giving them a thorough rest, he determined to wheel, join Ney, and attack Wellington, wherever found. It was serious and inexplicable slackness which he showed in not taking effective measures to determine immediately where his defeated enemy was. Being, nevertheless, well aware of the Prussian resources and character, he made up his mind to detail Grouchy, with thirty-three thousand men, for the purpose of scouring the country toward Liege at least as far as Namur. Then, to provide for what he considered a possible contingency,--namely, that which had actually occurred,--this adjunct army was to turn north, and hasten to Gembloux, in order to assure absolutely the isolation of Wellington; in any and every case the general was to keep his communications with Napoleon open.