As he thus led the ranks of twenty-two thousand footmen, and seven
thousand horse, all eyes followed him, and all hearts throbbed with
confidence of victory. From early dawn, till night darkened the field,
the horrid strife raged. In those days gunpowder was unknown, and the
ringing of battle-axes on helmet and cuirass, the strokes of sabers and
the clash of spears, shouts of onset, and the shrieks of the wounded, as
sixty thousand men fought hand to hand on one small field, rose like the
clamor from battling demons in the infernal world. Hour after hour of
carnage passed, and still no one could tell on whose banners victory
would alight. The gloom of night was darkening over the exhausted
combatants, when the winding of the bugle was heard in the rear of the
Austrians, and a band of four hundred Bavarian horsemen came plunging
down an eminence into the disordered ranks of Frederic. The hour of
dismay, which decides a battle, had come. A scene of awful carnage
ensued as the routed Austrians, fleeing in every direction, were pursued
and massacred. Frederic himself was struck from his horse, and as he
fell, stunned by the blow, he was captured, disarmed and carried to the
presence of his rival Louis.

The spirit of Frederic was crushed by the awful, the irretrievable
defeat, and he appeared before his conqueror speechless in the extremity
of his woe. Louis had the pride of magnanimity and endeavored to console
his captive.

"The battle is not lost by your fault," said he. "The Bavarians have
experienced to their cost that you are a valiant prince; but Providence
has decided the battle. Though I am happy to see you as my guest, I
sympathize with you in your sorrow, and will do what I can to alleviate
it."