With the first dawn of the morning, the two armies, in close contact, rushed furiously upon each other. There were seventy thousand on the one side, seventy-five thousand on the other. They faced each other in lines over an undulating plain nearly ten miles in extent. It is in vain to attempt to give the reader an adequate idea of the terrible battle which ensued. With musketry, artillery, gleaming sabres, and rushing horsemen, the infuriate hosts dashed upon each other. For fifteen hours the blood-red surges of battle swept to and fro over the plain. At length Prince Charles, having lost nine thousand in dead and wounded, seven thousand prisoners, sixteen thousand in all, sixty-six cannon, seventy-three flags and standards, beat a retreat. Rapidly his bleeding and exhausted troops marched back through Hohenfriedberg, entered the mountain defiles, and sought refuge, a thoroughly beaten army, among the fortresses of Bohemia. Frederick remained the undisputed victor of the field. Five thousand of his brave soldiers lay dead or wounded upon the plain. Even his stoical heart was moved by the greatness of the victory. As he first caught sight of M. Valori after the battle, he threw his arms around him, exclaiming, “My friend, God has helped me wonderfully this day.” “There was, after all,” says Valori, “at times a kind of devout feeling in this prince, who possessed such a combination of qualities, good and bad, that I know not which preponderates.” The Prussian army was so exhausted by its midnight march and its long day of battle that his majesty did not deem it wise to attempt to pursue the retreating foe. For this he has been severely, we think unjustly, censured by some military men. He immediately, that evening, wrote to his mother, saying, “So decisive a defeat has not been since Blenheim,” and assuring her that the two princes, her sons, who had accompanied him to the battle, were safe. Such was the battle of Hohenfriedberg, once of world-wide renown, now almost forgotten. CHAPTER XXI. BATTLES AND VICTORIES. Battle of Hohenfriedberg.--Religious Antagonism.--Anecdote of the King.--Retreat of the Austrians.--Horrors of War.--“A slight Pleasantry.”--Sufferings of the Prussian Army.--The Victory of Fontenoy.--Frederick’s Pecuniary Embarrassments.--Executive Abilities of Maria Theresa.--Inflexibility of the Austrian Queen.-- The Retreat to Silesia.--The Surprise at Sohr.--Military Genius of Frederick.--Great Victory of Sohr.