Part 9

— From that moment on, Porthos resumed, I decided that Mouston should communicate with my tailors and take my measurements in my stead.

— Cleverly devised, Porthos; but Mouston is a foot and a half shorter than you.

— Precisely. They took the measure down to the floor, and the hem of the garment came to me just above the knee.

— What luck you have, Porthos! These things only happen to you!

— Ah! yes, pay me your compliments, there is reason enough! It was precisely at that time, that is to say about two and a half years ago, that I left for Belle-Île, recommending to Mouston, in order to always have, in case of need, a sample of every fashion, that he have a suit made for himself every month.

— And would Mouston have neglected to obey your recommendation? Ah! ah! that would be wrong, Mouston!

— On the contrary, sir, on the contrary!

— No, he did not forget to have suits made for himself, but he forgot to warn me that he was growing stout.

— Well! it is not my fault, sir; your tailor did not tell me so.

— So that, Porthos continued, the knave, for two years past, has gained eighteen inches in girth, and my last twelve suits are all progressively too loose, by a foot to a foot and a half.

— But the others, those nearer the time when your build was the same?

— They are no longer in fashion, my dear friend, and if I were to wear them, I should look as if I had just arrived from Siam and been out of court for two years.

— I understand your predicament. How many new suits do you have? thirty-six? and not one fits you! Well! a thirty-seventh must be made; the other thirty-six shall be for Mouston.

— Ah! sir! said Mouston with a satisfied air, the truth is that Monsieur has always been very good to me.

— Of course! do you think the idea did not occur to me, or that the expense stopped me? But there are only two days left until the fête at Vaux; I received the invitation yesterday, I had Mouston brought post-haste with my wardrobe; I only discovered the misfortune that had befallen me this morning, and, between now and the day after tomorrow, there is not a tailor of any fashion who will undertake to make me a suit.

— That is to say a suit covered with gold, is it not?

— I want it everywhere!

— We shall arrange that. You do not leave for three days. The invitations are for Wednesday and it is Sunday morning.

— That is true; but Aramis strongly recommended that I arrive at Vaux twenty-four hours early.

— How, Aramis?

— Yes, it was Aramis who brought me the invitation.

— Ah! very well, I understand. You are invited on Monsieur Fouquet's side.

— Not at all! On the king's side, dear friend. The card says, in so many words: 'M. le baron du Vallon is informed that the king has deigned to place him on the list of his invitations...'

— Very good, but it is with Monsieur Fouquet that you are traveling.

— And when I think, cried Porthos, stamping the parquet floor with a kick, when I think that I shall have no suits! I am bursting with rage! I should like to strangle someone or tear something apart!

— Strangle no one and tear nothing, Porthos, I shall arrange all that: put on one of your thirty-six suits and come with me to a tailor.

— Bah! my runner has seen them all since this morning.

— Even M. Percerin?

— Who is M. Percerin?

— He is the king's tailor, of course!

— Ah! yes, yes, said Porthos, who wished to appear to know the king's tailor and who was hearing that name for the first time; at M. Percerin's, the king's tailor, of course! I thought he would be too busy.

— No doubt he will be; but, rest easy, Porthos; he will do for me what he would not do for another. Only, you will have to let yourself be measured, my friend.

— Ah! said Porthos, with a sigh, that is annoying; but, after all, what would you have!

— Well! you will do like the others, my dear friend; you will do like the king.

— How! they measure the king too? And he suffers it?

— The king is vain, my dear, and so are you, whatever you may say.

Porthos smiled with a triumphant air.

— Let us go then to the king's tailor! said he, and since he measures the king, faith! it seems to me I can well let myself be measured by him.

Chapter CCIX — What Messire Jean Percerin Was

The king's tailor, messire Jean Percerin, occupied a fairly large house in the rue Saint-Honoré, near the rue de l'Arbre-Sec. He was a man with a taste for fine fabrics, fine embroideries, fine velvets, being tailor to the king from father to son. This succession went back to Charles IX, to whom, as is known, fancies of bravado that were rather difficult to satisfy often occurred.

The Percerin of that time was a Huguenot like Ambroise Paré, and had been spared by the queen of Navarre, the fair Margot, as was written and said then, and that because he was the only one who had ever been able to make for her those marvelous riding habits she loved to wear, because they were apt to disguise certain anatomical defects that the queen of Navarre carefully concealed.

Percerin, saved, had made, out of gratitude, fine black doublets, very economical for Queen Catherine, who ended by being grateful for the Huguenot's preservation, at whom she had long scowled. But Percerin was a prudent man: he had heard that nothing was more dangerous for a Huguenot than the smiles of Queen Catherine; and, having noticed that she smiled at him more often than usual, he hastened to become a Catholic with all his family, and, having become irreproachable by this conversion, he attained the high position of master tailor of the crown of France.

Under Henri III, a vain king if ever there was one, this position acquired the height of one of the most sublime peaks of the Cordilleras. Percerin had been a clever man all his life, and, to keep this reputation beyond the grave, he took good care not to botch his death; he therefore expired most adroitly and just at the hour when his imagination was beginning to decline.

He left a son and a daughter, both worthy of the name they were called to bear: the son, an intrepid cutter exact as a square; the daughter, an embroiderer and designer of ornaments.

The wedding of Henri IV and Marie de Médicis, the beautiful mournings of said queen, made, with a few words let slip by M. de Bassompierre, the king of elegants of the time, the fortune of this second generation of Percerins.

M. Concino Concini and his wife Galigaï, who later shone at the Court of France, wished to Italianize the garments and brought tailors from Florence; but Percerin, piqued in his patriotism and his self-love, reduced these foreigners to nothing by his designs of applied brocatelle and his inimitable featherwork; so well that Concino was the first to renounce his compatriots, and held the French tailor in such esteem that he would no longer be dressed by anyone but him; so that he wore a doublet of his, the day Vitry broke his head with a pistol shot at the little bridge of the Louvre.

It is this doublet, coming from the workshops of master Percerin, that the Parisians had the pleasure of tearing into so many pieces, with the human flesh it contained.

Despite the favor Percerin had enjoyed with Concino Concini, King Louis XIII had the generosity not to bear a grudge against his tailor, and to retain him in his service. At the moment when Louis the Just gave this great example of equity, Percerin had raised two sons, one of whom made his first attempt at the wedding of Anne of Austria, invented for Cardinal Richelieu that fine Spanish habit with which he danced a saraband, made the costumes for the tragedy of Mirame, and sewed onto Buckingham's mantle those famous pearls that were destined to be scattered on the parquets of the Louvre.

One easily becomes illustrious when one has dressed M. de Buckingham, M. de Cinq-Mars, Mlle Ninon, M. de Beaufort and Marion Delorme. Thus Percerin III had reached the apogee of his glory when his father died.

This same Percerin III, old, glorious and rich, still dressed Louis XIV, and, having no more sons, which was a great sorrow for him, seeing that with him his dynasty was extinguished, and, having no more sons, let us say, had formed several pupils of fair promise. He had a carriage, an estate, lackeys, the tallest in all Paris, and, by special authorization of Louis XIV, a pack of hounds. He dressed MM. de Lyonne and Letellier with a sort of protection; but, a politician, nourished on state secrets, he had never succeeded in making a suit for M. Colbert. This is not explained, it is guessed. Great minds, of every kind, live on invisible, elusive perceptions; they act without knowing themselves why. The great Percerin, for, contrary to the habit of dynasties, it was especially the last of the Percerins who had merited the surname of Great, the great Percerin, we have said, cut by inspiration a skirt for the queen or a busk for the king; he invented a mantle for Monsieur, a bit of stocking for Madame; but, despite his supreme genius, he could not retain the measure of M. Colbert.

— That man, he would often say, is beyond my skill, and I could not see him in the design of my needles.

It goes without saying that Percerin was the tailor of M. Fouquet, and that the surintendant held him in high esteem.

M. Percerin was nearly eighty years old, and yet he was still green, and so dry at the same time, said the courtiers, that he was brittle. His renown and his fortune were great enough that M. le prince, that king of fops, should give him his arm while discussing costumes with him, and that the least eager to pay among the courtiers should never dare leave accounts too far in arrears with him; for master Percerin made garments on credit once, but never a second time if he had not been paid for the first.

One understands that such a tailor, instead of running after customers, should be difficult to receive new ones. Also Percerin refused to dress burghers or the too-recently ennobled. It was even rumored that M. de Mazarin, in return for the disinterested furnishing of a grand complete cardinal's habit in ceremony, had one day slipped letters of nobility into his pocket.

Percerin had wit and malice. He was said to be quite bawdy. At eighty, he still took with a firm hand the measure of women's bodices.

It is into the house of this artist-nobleman that d'Artagnan led the desolate Porthos.

The latter, while walking, said to his friend:

— Take care, my dear d'Artagnan, take care not to compromise the dignity of a man like me with the arrogance of this Percerin, who must be very uncivil; for I warn you, dear friend, that if he were wanting in respect to me, I would chastise him.

— Presented by me, answered d'Artagnan, you have nothing to fear, dear friend, were you... what you are not.

— Ah! it is that...

— What then? Would you have something against Percerin? Let us see, Porthos.

— I believe that, at the time...

— Well! what, at the time?

— I would have sent Mousqueton to a knave of that name.

— Well! after?

— And that this knave would have refused to dress me.

— Oh! a misunderstanding, no doubt, which it is urgent to rectify; Mouston must have confused things.

— Perhaps.

— He must have taken one name for another.

— It is possible. That scoundrel Mouston never had a memory for names.

— I take charge of all that.

— Very well.

— Have the carriage stop, Porthos; it is here.

— Here?

— Yes.

— How, here? We are at the Halles, and you told me the house was at the corner of the rue de l'Arbre-Sec.

— That is true; but look.

— Well! I look, and I see...

— What?

— That we are at the Halles, by God!

— You do not wish, no doubt, that our horses climb onto the carriage ahead of us?

— No.

— Nor that the carriage ahead of us climb onto the one before it?

— Still less.

— Nor that the second carriage pass over the bellies of the thirty or forty others that arrived before us?

— Ah! by my faith! you are right.

— Ah!

— So many people, my dear, so many people!

— Eh?

— And what are all those people doing there?

— It is quite simple: they are waiting their turn.

— Bah! have the comedians of the Hôtel de Bourgogne moved?

— No, their turn to enter M. Percerin's.

— But we are going to wait too, then, we.

— We, we shall be more ingenious and less proud than they.

— What shall we do, then?

— We shall get down, pass among the pages and lackeys, and we shall enter the tailor's, that I warrant you, especially if you walk first.

— Come, said Porthos.

And both, having alighted, made their way on foot toward the house.

What caused this congestion was that M. Percerin's door was shut, and that a lackey, standing at this door, explained to the illustrious customers of the illustrious tailor that, for the moment, M. Percerin received no one. It was repeated outside, always according to what the great lackey had confidentially said to a great lord for whom he had some kindness, it was repeated that M. Percerin was occupied with five suits for the king, and that, given the urgency of the situation, he was meditating in his study the ornaments, the color and the cut of these five suits.

Several, satisfied with this reason, went back happy to tell it to others, but several also, more tenacious, insisted that the door be opened to them, and, among these last, three blue cords designated for a ballet which would infallibly fail if the three blue cords did not have suits cut by the very hand of the great Percerin.

D'Artagnan, pushing Porthos before him, who plowed through the groups, reached the counters, behind which the tailor's boys were struggling to answer as best they could.

We forgot to say that at the door they had wished to stop Porthos like the others, but d'Artagnan had shown himself, had pronounced these only words:

— By order of the king!

And he had been introduced with his friend.

These poor devils had quite enough to do and did their best to answer the demands of the clients in the master's absence, interrupting a stitch to turn a phrase, and when wounded pride or disappointed waiting scolded them too sharply, the one attacked made a dive and disappeared under the counter.

The procession of discontented lords made a picture full of curious details.

Our captain of the musketeers, a man with a quick and sure glance, embraced it at a single look. But, after sweeping the groups, that glance stopped on a man placed facing him. This man, seated on a stool, barely rose above the counter that sheltered him. He was a man of about forty, with a melancholy physiognomy, a pale face, soft and luminous eyes. He looked at d'Artagnan and the others, a hand under his chin, like a curious and calm amateur. Only, on seeing and recognizing, no doubt, our captain, he pulled his hat down over his eyes.

It was perhaps this gesture that attracted d'Artagnan's glance. If so, it resulted that the man with the pulled-down hat had attained a goal quite different from the one he had proposed.

For the rest, the man's costume was simple enough, and his hair dressed evenly enough, that unobservant clients might take him for a simple tailor's boy crouched behind the oak, and stitching, with exactness, the cloth and the velvet.

However, this man too often had his head in the air to work fruitfully with his fingers.

D'Artagnan was not taken in, he, and he saw well that, if this man worked, it was certainly not upon the fabrics.

— Eh! said he, addressing this man, so you have become a tailor's boy, Monsieur Molière?

— Hush! Monsieur d'Artagnan, answered the man softly, hush! in Heaven's name! you will get me recognized.

— Well! where is the harm?

— The fact is there is no harm, but...

— But you mean there is no good either, is that not so?

— Alas! no, for I was, I assure you, occupied in looking at some very fine faces.

— Go on, go on, Monsieur Molière. I understand the interest the thing has for you, and... I shall not disturb you in your studies.

— Thank you!

— But on one condition: that you tell me where M. Percerin really is.

— Oh! that, gladly: in his study. Only...

— Only, one cannot enter?

— Inaccessible!

— To everyone?

— To everyone. He had me enter here, so that I might be at ease to make my observations, and then he went away.

— Well! my dear Monsieur Molière, you are going to tell him I am here, are you not?

— I? cried Molière in the tone of a good dog from whom one takes the bone he has legitimately earned; I, disturb myself? Ah! Monsieur d'Artagnan, how badly you treat me!

— If you do not go at once to tell M. Percerin that I am here, my dear Monsieur Molière, said d'Artagnan in a low voice, I warn you of one thing, which is that I shall not let you see the friend I am bringing with me.

Molière indicated Porthos with an imperceptible gesture.

— This one, is it not? said he.

— Yes.

Molière fixed on Porthos one of those glances that search brains and hearts. The examination seemed to him no doubt big with promises, for he rose at once and passed into the next room.

Chapter CCX — The Samples

Meanwhile, the crowd slowly ebbed, leaving at each corner of the counter a murmur or a threat, as at the sandbanks of the ocean, the waves leave a little foam or crushed seaweed, when they retreat with the falling tides.

At the end of ten minutes, Molière reappeared, making a sign to d'Artagnan under the tapestry. The latter precipitated himself, dragging Porthos, and, through rather complicated corridors, led him into Percerin's study. The old man, his sleeves rolled up, was rummaging a piece of brocade with great flowers of gold, to bring out fine reflections. On seeing d'Artagnan, he left his fabric and came to him, not radiant, not courteous, but, all in all, civil enough.

— Monsieur the captain of the guards, said he, you will excuse me, will you not, but I am busy.

— Eh! yes, with the king's suits? I know that, my dear Monsieur Percerin. You are making three, I have been told?

— Five, my dear sir, five!

— Three or five, that does not trouble me, master Percerin, and I know you will make them the finest in the world.

— That is known, yes. Once made, they will be the finest in the world, I do not say no, but for them to be the finest in the world, they must first exist, and for that, Monsieur the captain, I need time.

— Ah bah! two more days is far more than you need, Monsieur Percerin, said d'Artagnan with the greatest phlegm.

Percerin raised his head like a man little used to being contradicted, even in his whims, but d'Artagnan paid no heed to the air the illustrious brocade tailor was beginning to assume.

— My dear Monsieur Percerin, he continued, I bring you a customer.

— Ah! ah! made Percerin with a surly air.

— M. le baron du Vallon de Bracieux de Pierrefonds, continued d'Artagnan.

Percerin attempted a bow that found nothing very sympathetic in the terrible Porthos, who, since his entrance into the study, had been looking askance at the tailor.

— A good friend of mine, d'Artagnan finished.

— I shall serve Monsieur, said Percerin, but, later.

— Later? And when?

— Why, when I have time.

— You already said that to my valet, interrupted Porthos displeased.

— It is possible, said Percerin, I am almost always in a hurry.

— My friend, Porthos sententiously said, one always has the time one wants.

Percerin became crimson, which, in old men whitened by age, is an unfavorable diagnosis.

— Monsieur, said he, is, faith! quite free to be served elsewhere.

— Come, come, Percerin, slipped in d'Artagnan, you are not amiable today. Well! I am going to tell you a word that will make you fall at our knees. Monsieur is not only a friend of mine, but also a friend of M. Fouquet.

— Ah! ah! made the tailor, that is another thing.

Then, turning toward Porthos:

— Monsieur le baron is with the surintendant? asked he.

— I am my own, burst out Porthos, just at the moment when the tapestry lifted to give passage to a new interlocutor.

Molière observed. D'Artagnan laughed. Porthos grumbled.

— My dear Percerin, said d'Artagnan, you will make a suit for Monsieur le baron, it is I who ask it of you.

— For you, I do not say no, Monsieur the captain.

— But that is not all: you will make this suit for him right away.

— Impossible before a week.

— Then it is as if you refused to make it for him, because the suit is destined to appear at the fêtes of Vaux.

— I repeat that it is impossible, resumed the obstinate old man.

— Not so, dear Monsieur Percerin, especially if it is I who beg it of you, said a soft voice at the door, a metallic voice that made d'Artagnan's ear prick up.

It was the voice of Aramis.

— Monsieur d'Herblay! cried the tailor.

— Aramis! murmured d'Artagnan.

— Ah! our bishop! made Porthos.

— Good day, d'Artagnan! good day, Porthos! good day, dear friends! said Aramis. Come, come, dear Monsieur Percerin, make Monsieur's suit, and I warrant you that in making it you will do a pleasing thing to M. Fouquet.

And he accompanied these words with a sign that meant: 'Consent and dismiss.' It appears that Aramis had over master Percerin an influence superior to that of d'Artagnan himself, for the tailor inclined in sign of assent, and, turning toward Porthos:

— Go have yourself measured on the other side, said he roughly.

Porthos blushed in a formidable manner.

D'Artagnan saw the storm coming, and, addressing Molière:

— My dear sir, said he half-voice, the man you see believes himself dishonored when one measures the flesh and bones that God allotted him; study me this type, master Aristophanes, and profit.

Molière needed no encouragement; he was devouring the baron Porthos with his eyes.

— Monsieur, said he, if it pleases you to come with me, I shall have a suit measured on you, without the measurer touching you.

— Oh! said Porthos, how do you say that, my friend?

— I say that neither the yard nor the foot shall be applied to your seams. It is a new method, which we have devised, to take the measure of people of quality whose susceptibility recoils from being touched by churls. We have susceptible people who cannot bear to be measured, a ceremony which, in my opinion, wounds the natural majesty of man, and if, by chance, monsieur, you were one of those...

— Corbœuf! I believe well that I am.

— Well! that falls marvelously, Monsieur le baron, and you shall have the first use of our invention.

— But how the devil is it done? said Porthos delighted.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”