Two brothers, differing in age by nineteen years, owed their rise from the condition of singers at the Russian Court into positions of great wealth and political importance to their gratification of the lascivious lusts of two imperial princesses, afterwards known in history as the Empresses Elizabeth Petrowna and Catherine II. Thus the two Rasums, born in 1709 and 1728, of half-Cossack parentage, in the obscure Ukraine village of Lemeschi, became the Counts Rasoumowsky, nobles of the Russian Empire. They were men of rare ability, and, like Shakespeare’s ~Duncan~, “bore their faculties so meek,” that none of the monarchs under whom they served, not even those who personally disliked either of them, made him the victim of imperial caprice or ill will. A whimsical proof of the rapidity with which the new name became known throughout Europe is its introduction in 1762 into a farce of the English wit, Samuel Foote.[40] The Empresses provided their paramours with wives from noble families and continued their kindness to the children born of these unions--one of whom came in time to occupy a rather prominent place among the patrons of Beethoven. [Sidenote: COUNT ANDREAS RASOUMOWSKY] Andreas Kyrillovitch (born October 22, 1752), fourth son of the younger Rasoumowsky, was destined for the navy and received the best education possible in those days for his profession, even to serving in what was then the best of all schools, an English man-of-war. He had been elevated to the rank of captain when, at the age of 25, he was transferred to the diplomatic service. He was Ambassador successively at Venice, Naples, Copenhagen and Stockholm; less famous, perhaps, for his diplomacy than notorious for the profuseness of his expenditures, and for his amours with women of the highest rank, the Queen of Naples not excepted. Rasoumowsky was personally widely known at Vienna, where he had married (November 4, 1788) Elizabeth, Countess Thun, elder sister of the Princess Charles Lichnowsky, and whither he was transferred as Ambassador early in 1792, being officially presented to the Emperor on Friday, May 25, as the “Wiener Zeitung” records. Near the end of Czar Paul’s reign (in March, 1799) he was superseded by Count Kalichev; but on the accession of Alexander was restored, his “presentation audience” taking place October 14, 1801. His dwelling and office had formerly been in the Johannes-Gasse, but now (1805-6) he was in the Wallzeil, but on the point of removing to a new palace built by himself. Schnitzer says: “Rasoumowsky lived in Vienna like a prince, encouraging art and science, surrounded by a luxurious library and other collections and admired and envied by all; what advantages accrued from all this to Russian affairs is another question.” This palace, afterwards nearly destroyed by fire and rebuilt, is now, after various vicissitudes, the seat of the Imperial Geological Institute, Landstrasse, Rasoumowsky-Gasse No. 3.