ed and marched
against the French, with the hope of driving them out of Saxony.

His hope was not a very promising one. The French army was sixty
thousand strong. He had but little over twenty thousand men. While he
felt hope the French felt assurance. They had their active foe now in
their clutches, they deemed. With his handful of men he could not
possibly stand before their onset. He had escaped them more than once
before; this time they had him, as they believed.

His camp was on a height, near the Saale. Towards it the French
advanced, with flying colors and sounding trumpets, as if with purpose
to strike terror into the ranks of their foes. That Frederick would
venture to stand before them they scarcely credited. If he should, his
danger would be imminent, for they had laid their plans to surround his
small force and, by taking the king and his army prisoners, end at a
blow the vexatious war. They calculated shrewdly but not well, for they
left Frederick out of the account in their plans.

As they came up, line after line, column after column, they must have
been surprised by the seeming indifference of the Prussians. There were
in their ranks no signs of retreat and none of hostility. They remained
perfectly quiet in their camp, not a gun being fired, not a movement
visible, as inert and heedless to all seeming of the coming of the
French as though there were no enemy within a hundred miles.

There was a marked difference between the make-up of the two armies,
which greatly reduced their numerical odds. Frederick's army was
composed of thoroughly disciplined and trained soldiers, every man of
whom knew his place and his duty, and could be trusted in an emergency.
The French, on the contrary, had brought all they could of Paris with
them; their army was encumbered with women, wig-makers, barbers, and the
like impedimenta, and confusion and gayety in their ranks replaced the
stern discipline of Frederick's camp. After the battle, the booty is
said to have consisted largely of objects of gallantry better suited for
a boudoir than a camp.

The light columns of smoke that arose from the Prussian camp as the
French advanced indicated their occupation,--and that by no means
suggested alarm. They were cooking their dinners, with as much unconcern
as though they had not yet seen the coming enemy nor heard the clangor
of trumpets that announced their approach. Had the French commanders
been within the Prussian lines t