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.