"SATURDAY NIGHT, 25th NOVEMBER, 1741, brightest of moonshiny nights, our dispositions are all made: Several attacks, three if I remember; one of them false, under some Polastron, Gaisson, from the south side; a couple of them true, from the northwest and the southeast sides, under Maurice with his French, and Rutowsky with his Saxons, these two. And there is great marching 'on the side of the Karl-Thor (Charles-Gate),' where Rutowsky is; and by Count Maurice 'behind the Wischerad;'--and shortly after midnight the grand game begins. That French-Polastron attack, false, though with dreadful cannonade from the south, attracts poor Ogilvy with almost all his forces to that quarter; while the couple of Saxon Captains (Rutowsky not at once successful, Maurice with his French completely so) break in upon Ogilvy from rearward, on the right flank and on the left; and ruin the poor man. Military readers will find the whole detail of it well given in Espagnac. Looser account is to be had in the Book they call Mauvillon's." [_Derniere Guerre de Boheme,_ i. 252-264. Saxe's own Account (Letter to Chevalier de Folard) is in Espagnac, i. 89 et seqq.] One thing I remember always: the bright moonlight; steeples of Prag towering serene in silvery silence, and on a sudden the wreaths of volcanic fire breaking out all round them. The opposition was but trifling, null in some places, poor Ogilvy being nothing of a wizard, and his garrison very small. It fell chiefly on Rutowsky; who met it with creditable vigor, till relieved by the others. Comte Maurice, too, did a shifty thing. Circling round by the outside of the Wischerad, by rural roads in the bright moonshine, he had got to the Wall at last, hollow slope and sheer wall; and was putting-to his scaling-ladders,--when, by ill luck, they proved too short! Ten feet or so; hopelessly too short. Casting his head round, Maurice notices the Gallows hard by: "There, see you, are a few short ladders: MES ENFANS, bring me these, and we will splice with rope!" Supplemented by the gallows, Maurice soon gets in, cuts down the one poor sentry; rushes to the Market-place, finds all his Brothers rushing, embraces them with "VICTOIRE!" and "You see I am eldest; bound to be foremost of you!" "No point in all the War made a finer blaze in the French imagination, or figured better in the French gazettes, than this of the Scalade of Prag, 25th November, 1741. And surely it was important to get hold of Prag; nevertheless, intrinsically it is no great thing, but an opportune small thing, done by the Comte de Saxe, in spite of such contradiction as we saw."