This same Percerin III, old, famous, and wealthy, yet further dressed Louis XIV; and having no son, which was a great cause of sorrow to him, seeing that with himself his dynasty would end, he had brought up several hopeful pupils. He possessed a carriage, a country-house, lackeys the tallest in Paris; and by special authority from Louis XIV, a pack of hounds. He worked for Messieurs de Lyonne and Letellier, under a sort of patronage; but, politic man as he was, and versed in State secrets, he never succeeded in fitting M. Colbert. This is beyond explanation; it is a matter for intuition. Great geniuses of every kind live upon unseen, intangible ideas; they act without themselves knowing why. The great Percerin (for, contrary to the rule of dynasties, it was, above all, the last of the Percerins who deserved the name of Great),- the great Percerin was inspired when he cut a robe for the Queen or a coat for the King; he could invent a mantle for Monsieur, a clock for Madame’s stocking; but in spite of his supreme genius, he could never hit the measure of M. Colbert. “That man,” he used often to say, “is beyond my art; my needle never can hit him off.” We need scarcely say that Percerin was M. Fouquet’s tailor, and that the superintendent highly esteemed him.
M. Percerin was nearly eighty years old,- nevertheless, still fresh, and at the same time so dry, the courtiers used to say, that he was positively brittle. His renown and his fortune were great enough for Monsieur the Prince, that king of fops, to take his arm when talking over the fashions; and for those least eager to pay never to dare to leave their accounts in arrear with him,- for M. Percerin would for the first time make clothes upon credit, but the second never, unless paid for the former order.
It is easy to see that a tailor of such standing, instead of running after customers, would make difficulties about receiving new ones. And so Percerin declined to fit bourgeois, or those who had but recently obtained patents of nobility. It was stated, even, that M. de Mazarin, in return for a full suit of ceremonial vestments as cardinal, one fine day slipped letters of nobility into his pocket.
Percerin was endowed with intelligence and wit. He might be called very lively. At eighty years of age he still took with a steady hand the measure of women’s waists.
It was to the house of this great lord of tailors that d’Artagnan took the despairing Porthos; who, as they were going along, said to his friend: “Take care, my good d’Artagnan, not to compromise the dignity of a man such as I am with the arrogance of this Percerin, who will, I expect, be very impertinent; for I give you notice, my friend, that if he is wanting in respect to me I will chastise him.”
“Presented by me,” replied d’Artagnan, “you have nothing to fear, even though you were- what you are not.”
“Ah! ’tis because-”
“What! Have you anything against Percerin, Porthos?”
“I think that I once sent Mouston to a fellow of that name.”
“And then?”
“The fellow refused to supply me.”
“Oh, a misunderstanding, no doubt, which ’tis pressing to set right! Mouston must have made a mistake.”
“Perhaps.”
“He has confused the names.”
“Possibly. That rascal Mouston never can remember names.”
“I will take it all upon myself.”
“Very good.”
“Stop the carriage, Porthos; here we are!”
“Here! how here? We are at the Halles; and you told me the house was at the corner of the Rue de l’Arbre-Sec.”
“‘Tis true; but look!”
“Well, I do look, and I see-”
“What?”
“Pardieu! that we are at the Halles!”
“You do not, I suppose, want our horses to clamber up on the top of the carriage in front of us?”
“No.”
“Nor the carriage in front of us to mount on the one in front of it?”
“Still less.”
“Nor that the second should be driven over the roofs of the thirty or forty others which have arrived before us?”
“No; you are right, indeed. What a number of people! And what are they all about?”