of the last of these displays was the very young Francis II., holy Roman Emperor who enjoyed the presentation very much. Strangely enough, the public demonstrations of these fencing styles seem to end very abruptly, despite the big popularity they had among both noblemen and common citizens. Some historians assume that it was the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire which directly led to the end and eventual extinction of its unique fencing culture, because the downfall of the Empire did also destroy much of its oldest institutions and practices. The collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1806, and the wars and battles of the period destroyed several of the remaining old fencing schools and led to the death of many active fencers. It is possible that the Napoleonic wars brought an end to most of the remaining lines of the Liechtenauer tradition. Another source mentions living longsword fencers who were alive in 1819, but who were "without any fencing schools" (a reference to the decline of both the Federfechter and the Marksbrüder). The German historian Alfred Schaer presented evidence that longsword fencing was referenced in descriptions and even portrayed on images of the Marksbrüder and the Federfechter as long as these institutions existed. He makes the argument that longsword fencing was such an integral part of the tradition of these imperial institutions that they stubbornly clinged to it, even centuries after longsword fencing had lost its relevancy for battles or judicial duels. The last practitioners of longsword fencing may have ceased activity with the dissolution of the Marxbrüder and Federfechter by the early 19th century. On 16 April 1862, The Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung mentioned the death of an unnamed, 76-year-old (born in 1786) former member of the Marksbrüder, who having fenced longsword in his teenage years in the early 1800s, was possibly the last living practitioner. The last known source who mentions living members of the Marksbrüder is the "Jagd-Zeitung" ("Hunting Newspapers") part 9 from 1866. The author Jos Baader, mentions living veterans of the old fencing schools who were still alive but very old (he mentions a gentleman who is in his late 80s, but was once a practitioner of their specific longsword fencing style). There were some living German longsword fencers alive during the lifetime of Alfred Hutton, a British fencer of the 19th century who was interested into the reconstruction of old fencing