During the next three hours, and, indeed, to the end of the day, the combat on the German right and centre remained stationary, varied by desperate attempts to win ground from the Imperial Grenadiers which cost many lives and achieved no marked success. Seven fresh batteries, however, came successively into action, so that about four o’clock, the German line of guns, between the wood of Vionville and Flavigny had been increased to more than a hundred pieces and their fire effectually stayed the French from advancing. Some portions of the 7th, 8th and 9th Corps, which had struggled up from the Moselle valley during the sultry afternoon, entered the woods, were pushed up the ravine road from Gorze, or were thrown forward in front of the big battery which was the mainstay of the left wing. Prince Frederick Charles himself arrived about four o’clock. He had ridden straight from Pont à Mousson on learning that a serious engagement was afoot, and as he cantered up to the front he was heartily welcomed by the men of the 3rd Corps which he had commanded for ten years. _Arrival of the Tenth Corps._ Surveying the scene from the lofty upland above the wood for a time, he rode off to another eminence near Flavigny, because the stress of battle was then on the left wing, where the rest of the 10th Corps, so long absent from the field, had appeared just in time to encounter the fresh troops which had been led forward by Marshal Lebœuf and General de Ladmirault. When Von Bredow’s Brigade rode against Canrobert’s Corps, Von Barby’s horse were sent to guard the extreme left against a surprise from the masses of French troops gathering on the Doncourt hills. They pushed far northward, and sustained a cannonade from the enemy, who soon forced them to retreat; for Lebœuf, with Aymard’s Division—Bazaine had now called for Nayral’s as well as Montaudon’s—moved down towards the Tronville thickets, and Ladmirault, whose infantry had at length reached him from the Moselle valley, sent Grenier forward in line with Aymard. These two divisions, driving the horsemen back towards Tronville, at once assailed the woodlands, so often named, and combining their attack with that of Tixier, whose division formed the right of Canrobert’s Corps, they expelled the German infantry from the northern section of the wood. Lehmann’s Hanoverians and the wreck of the Brandenburgers gave ground slowly, but, after an hour’s severe bush-fighting, the left of the 3rd Corps was obliged to yield, and nothing restrained the advancing French infantry save the terribly effective fire of the German gunners, upon whom the brunt of the battle fell. As the most forward German guns were retired south of the highway, Grenier sent three batteries over the ravine, and fortune seemed, for the first time, to favour the Imperial soldiers. But, at this trying moment, the 20th Division of the 10th Corps—the men had already marched that day twenty-seven miles—appeared