n, a M. de Beaufort, and a Marion de
Lorme. And thus Percerin the third had attained the summit of his glory
when his father died. 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, men-servants the tallest in Paris; and by special
authority from Louis XIV., a pack of hounds. He worked for MM. 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 guessing or for intuition.
Great geniuses of every kind live on 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 mount a mantle
for Monsieur, the clock of a stocking for Madame; but, in spite of his
supreme talent, he could never hit off anything approaching a creditable
fit for M. Colbert. "That man," he used often to say, "is beyond my art;
my needle can never dot him down." 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
M. le 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 Master 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 at once that a tailor of such renown, instead of
running after customers, made difficulties about obliging any fresh
ones. And so Percerin declined to fit _bourgeois_, or those who had but
recently obtained patents of nobility. A story used to circulate that
even M. de Mazarin, in exchange for Percerin supplying him with a full
suit of ceremonial vestments as cardinal, one fine day slipped letters
of nobility into his pocket.

It was to the house of this grand llama of tailor