They are nearly all gathered to the “land o’ the leal” now. The last of Hougoumont’s defenders--Von Trovich of the Nassauers--died in 1882; Albemarle, who fought with the 14th Foot, passed away quite recently; while the Guards turned out to bury a veteran not long since who paraded for the last time in Caterham workhouse! In 1894 John Stacey, aged _ninety-six_, of the German Legion, _walked_ from Yorkshire to London to see if his _tenpence a day_ might not be increased. For thirty years you could mark, by the deeper colour of the corn, where they had buried the dead in greatest numbers: they still find buttons in the plough-land after rain, with bullets cut in half against our sword-blades, and sometimes bones! Ten thousand people, on an average, visit the field each year; and, though the land lies dozing under its wealth of crops, and the lark trills his requiem where the guns once thundered, and the herdboy’s song rises in place of “Vive l’Empereur!”--never will the nations forget that fearful Sunday or the names of WELLINGTON and WATERLOO. [Illustration: MARSHAL BLÜCHER. (_After Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A._)] [Illustration: _Königgrätz_ _By Charles Lowe_ _King William I of Prussia_ _The Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria_] Not since the “Völkerschlacht,” or Armageddon of the nations at Leipzig, in 1813, when the allies overthrew the hosts of Napoleon, had Europe witnessed such a stupendous conflict as was fought near Königgrätz, on the Upper Elbe, in Bohemia, on the 3rd July, 1866. This battle was called of Königgrätz by the Prussians, of Sadowa by the Austrians; and, as a matter of topographical fact, the latter was the more correct title, just as the field of Waterloo is known as Mont Saint Jean to the French, and Belle Alliance to the Prussians--in both cases with more justice. At Leipzig about 430,000 men had mingled in fight, while at Königgrätz, as we shall call it in compliment to our ancient and honoured allies the Prussians, the total number of combatants was about 435,000, or close on half a million of men.