Elizabeth's response to the lack of marriage prospects was to take Alexis Shubin, a handsome sergeant in the Semyonovsky Guards regiment, as her lover. When Empress Anna found out about this, she had Shubin's tongue cut off and banished him to Siberia. After consoling herself, Elizabeth turned to handsome coachmen and footmen for her sexual pleasure. She eventually found a long-term companion in Alexis Razumovsky, a kind-hearted and handsome Ukrainian peasant serf with a good bass voice. Razumovsky had been brought from his village to St. Petersburg by a nobleman to sing for a church choir until the Grand Duchess purchased the talented serf from the nobleman for her own choir. A simple-minded man, Razumovsky never showed interest in affairs of state during all the years of his relationship with Elizabeth, which spanned from the days of her obscurity to the height of her power. As the couple was devoted to each other, there is reason to believe that they might even have married in a secret ceremony. In 1742, the Holy Roman Emperor made Razumovsky a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1756, Elizabeth made him a Prince and Field Marshal.