the French were
prisoners, reducing the number of killed and wounded to 80,640,--which
was even a good four days' work. Probably a third of these were killed
or mortally wounded, as artillery was freely used in the battle. War is
a great manufacturer of _pabulum Acheruntis_,--grave-meat, that is to
say.

[48] It is impossible to speak with precision of the number of the
population of Prussia. The highest number mentioned by a respectable
authority is 19,000,000; but that is given in "round numbers," and is
not meant to be taken literally. But if it be 19,000,000, but little
more than half as large as that of Austria as it was when the war began,
not much above a fourth as large as that of Russia, many millions below
that of the British Islands, a few million less than that of Italy as it
stood before the cession of Venetia by Austria, and a few millions more
than that of Spain. The populations of Prussia and Italy when the war
began were a little above 40,000,000. The populations of Austria and the
German states that sided with her may have been about 50,000,000; and
Austria had as much assistance from her German allies as Prussia had
from the Italians,--the Saxons helping her much, showing the highest
military qualities in the brief but bloody war. Had all the lesser
German states preserved a strict neutrality, so that the entire Prussian
force could have been directed against Austria, the Prussians would have
been before Vienna, and probably in that city, in ten days from the date
of Sadowa. Prussia brought out 730,000 men, or about one twenty-sixth
part of her entire population.

[49] Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg, and History of Prussia during
the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Vol. I. pp. 91, 92.

[50] Stein was one of those eminent men who have acted as if they
thought coarseness bordering upon brutality an evidence of independence
of spirit and greatness of soul. He was uncivil to those beneath him,
not civil to those above him, and insulting to his equals. He addressed
the King of Prussia in language that no gentleman ever employs, and he
berated his underlings in a style that even President Johnson might
despair of equalling. He hated the Duke of Dalberg, on both public and
private accounts; and when the Duke was one of the French Ambassadors at
Vienna, in time of the Congress, he offered to call on the Baron. "Tell
him," said Stein, "that, if he visits me as French Ambassador, he shall
be well