batteries on the walls
drove back the pursuing Prussians.

Prague, with the broken army thus driven within its walls, now contained
one hundred thousand inhabitants. The city was totally unprepared for a
siege. All supplies of food being cut off, the inhabitants were soon
reduced to extreme suffering. The queen was exceedingly anxious that the
city should hold out until she could hasten to its relief. She succeeded
in sending a message to the besieged army, by a captain of grenadiers,
who contrived to evade the vigilance of the besiegers and to gain
entrance to the city.

"I am concerned," said the empress, "that so many generals, with so
considerable a force, must remain besieged in Prague, but I augur
favorably for the event. I can not too strongly impress upon your minds
that the troops will incur everlasting disgrace should they not effect
what the French in the last war performed with far inferior numbers. The
honor of the whole nation, as well as that of the imperial aims, is
interested in their present behavior. The security of Bohemia, of my
other hereditary dominions, and of the German empire itself, depends on
a gallant defense and the preservation of Prague.

"The army under the command of Marshal Daun is daily strengthening, and
will soon be in a condition to raise the siege. The French are
approaching with all diligence. The Swedes are marching to my
assistance. In a short space of time affairs will, under divine
Providence, wear a better aspect."

The scene in Prague was awful. Famine strode through all the streets,
covering the pavements with the emaciate corpses of the dead. An
incessant bombardment was kept up from the Prussian batteries, and shot
and shell were falling incessantly, by day and by night, in every
portion of the city. Conflagrations were continually blazing; there was
no possible place of safety; shells exploded in parlors, in chambers, in
cellars, tearing limb from limb, and burying the mutilated dead beneath
the ruins of their dwellings. The booming of the cannon, from the
distant batteries, was answered by the thunder of the guns from the
citadel and the walls, and blended with all this uproar rose the
uninterrupted shrieks of the wounded and the dying. The cannonade from
the Prussian batteries was so destructive, that in a few days one
quarter of the entire city was demolished.

Count Daun, with sixty thousand men, was soon advancing rapidly towards
Prague. Frederic, leaving a s