It is evident that this unhappy marriage was decisive in determining De Sade's career; he at once threw himself recklessly into every form of dissipation, spending his health and his substance sometimes among refinedly debauched nobles and sometimes among coarsely debauched lackeys.

Still, there was a hitch somewhere in the gathering that threw it out of normal.

They did me well, I assure you—uncommon well: Bollinger of '84; green chartreuse fit for a prince; […]

Finnocchio (Florence fennel), p. 367