THREE:It made it none the better that only Landor had the right to give her the strength of his arm, and that only Cairness had the right to the desperate, imploring look she threw him. It was a swift glance of a moment, and then she reached out a steady enough hand for the parasol, and smiled. It had been much too tragic to lastand in those surroundings. It was a flash of the naked swords of pain, and then they were sheathed. But each had left a sharp gash. No one had seen it. Perhaps to many there would have been nothing to see.This was a blow which for a time completely prostrated the Prussian monarch. Nothing but the most indomitable spirit and the highest military talent could have saved any man under such circumstances. But Frederick had disciplined both his generals and soldiers to despise reverses, and he relied on their keeping at bay the host of enemies with which he was surrounded till he had tried a last blow. On the field of Rosbach, near the plain of Lützen, where Gustavus Adolphus fell, after having relieved Marshal Keith at Leipsic, Frederick gave battle to the united French and Austrians. The French numbered forty thousand men, the Austrians twenty thousand; yet, with his twenty thousand against sixty thousand, Frederick, on the 5th of November, took the field. His inferior numbers favoured the stratagem which he had planned. After fighting fiercely for awhile, his troops gave way, and appeared to commence a hasty retreat. This, however, was continued only till the French and Austrians were thrown off their guard, when the Prussians suddenly turned, and received the headlong squadrons with a murderous coolness and composure. The Austrians, confounded, fled at once; and Soubise, a general of the princely House of Rohan, who owed his appointment to Madame Pompadour, was totally incapable of coping with the Prussian veterans. He saw his troops flying in wild rout, and galloped off with them, leaving a vast number of slain, seven thousand prisoners, and the greater part of his baggage, artillery, and standards in the hands of the enemy.
