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.
Long before daybreak on the 8th, the French rear-guard evacuated Salbris to avoid a further encounter with the enemy, whose strength was greatly overestimated. After some slight skirmishes the Cavalry Division reached Vierzon that evening. The telegraph wires were cut and the railway line torn up in several places, 70 goods vans were made prize of, the direction of the enemy's retreat was ascertained, and any offensive movement on the part of the French from that side for the time was reckoned very improbable.
The Division had fulfilled its task; it was now ordered to leave one brigade in observation, and to advance in the direction of Blois with the rest. General (Count) von der Groeben (commanding 14th Cavalry Brigade) maintained his positions at Vierzon and Salbris till the 14th.
The winter marches of the 6th Cavalry Division were exceptionally arduous. It was almost impossible to travel excepting by the high roads, and they were so slippery with ice that it was often necessary to dismount and lead the horses. The inhabitants of the Sologne were extremely hostile, and troopers patrolling in advance were fired upon in every village. The French forces, on the other hand, made but a feeble resistance. Numerous prisoners and large quantities of abandoned war matériel bore witness to a hasty retreat, in many cases indicated panic-flight. Nevertheless, in spite of much desultory marching and counter-marching, the Corps on December 13th finally succeeded in joining the right wing of the Army of Orleans at Bourges. The plight in which it arrived there may be gathered from the telegraphic _Correspondance Urgente_ of the Tours Government with General Bourbaki, who, when General d'Aurelle was dismissed from the command in chief, had assumed command of the three Corps.
