to fill up
the terrible gaps created at Prague and Kolin, in the regiments
most hotly engaged, with fresh troops; who were speedily rendered,
by incessant drills and discipline, fit to take their places in the
ranks with the veterans.

The king was lodged in the cathedral close of the city. Keith with
his division occupied the other side of the river, across which a
bridge was at once thrown. Prince Maurice and Bevern had gone to
Bunzlau, at the junction of the Iser and Elbe; but when, upon a
crowd of light Austrian horse approaching, the Prince sent to the
king to ask whether he should retreat, he was at once recalled, and
the Prince of Prussia appointed in his stead.

On the 2nd of July came news which, on the top of his other
troubles, almost prostrated Frederick. This was of the death of his
mother, to whom he was most fondly attached. He retired from public
view for some days; for although he was as iron in the hour of
battle, he was a man of very sensitive disposition, and fondly
attached to his family.

His chief confidant during this sad time was the English
ambassador, Mitchell; a bluff, shrewd, hearty man, for whom the
king had conceived a close friendship. He had accompanied Frederick
from the time he left Berlin, and had even been near him on the
battlefields; and it was in no small degree due to his despatches
and correspondence that we have obtained so close a view of
Frederick, the man, as distinct from Frederick the king and
general.

The Prince of Prussia, however, did no better than Prince Maurice.
The main Austrian army, after much hesitation, at last crossed the
Elbe and moved against him; thinking, doubtless, that he was a less
formidable antagonist than the king. The prince fell back, but in
such hesitating and blundering fashion that he allowed the
Austrians to get between him and his base, the town of Zittau,
where his magazines had been established.

Zittau stood at the foot of the mountain, and was a Saxon town. The
Austrians had come to deliver Saxony, and they began the work by
firing red-hot balls into Zittau, thereby laying the whole town in
ashes, rendering 10,000 people homeless, and doing no injury
whatever to the Prussian garrison or magazines.

The heat, however, from the ruins was so terrible that the five
battalions in garrison there were unable to support it and,
evacuating the town, joined the prince's army; which immediately
retired to Bautzen on the other side of the mo