For several days the allied lines moved onward, slowly, widely scattered, and carelessly. Napoleon was as calm and undaunted as if he had been the victor. Retreating on the defensive with careful deliberation, he strengthened his forces by well-chosen periods of rest, and by hurrying in reinforcements from the various depots about and beyond Paris. On the afternoon of February ninth, when leaving Nogent for Sezanne, he wrote to his brother Joseph, whom he had left to represent his interests at Paris, that he could now reckon, all told, on between sixty and seventy thousand men, including engineers and artillery; that he estimated the Silesian army under Bluecher at forty-five thousand, and the main army under Schwarzenberg at a hundred and fifty thousand, including Bubna and the Cossacks. "If I gain a victory over the Silesian army, and put it out of account for some days, I can turn against Schwarzenberg, reckoning on the reinforcements you will send, with from seventy to eighty thousand men, and I think he cannot oppose me at once with more than from a hundred and ten to a hundred and twenty thousand. If I find myself too weak to attack, I shall be at least strong enough to hold him in check for a fortnight or three weeks, and this would give me the opportunity for new combinations." To hold Schwarzenberg temporarily, Oudinot with twenty-five thousand men was stationed on the line from Provins to Sens, and Victor with fourteen thousand was sent to Nogent. The Emperor himself, with the old guard, about eight thousand strong, with Ney and Marmont each commanding six thousand infantry, and with ten thousand cavalry under Nansouty and Doumerc, set out from Sezanne to try his fortunes with Bluecher.