Percerin

Also known as: M. Percerin / Messire Jean Percerin / Monsieur Percerin · Family: French court · Role: king's tailor · First appears: Chapter 2

On Sunday morning, Porthos accepted D’Artagnan’s plan to be measured by Percerin for a court suit, reasoning that “Oh! only the king’s tailor!” Percerin was the tailor of Louis XIV, who dressed the king and granted him special authority to keep a pack of hounds.

His family’s rise began when a Percerin converted to Catholicism with his family and became master tailor to the Crown. The marriage of Henry IV. and Marie de Medici helped make the second generation prosperous; M. Concino Concini thereafter employed Percerin exclusively, while Louis XIII. retained him in his service despite Concino’s fate. Percerin also worked under the patronage of M. de Lyonne and M. Letellier, was Fouquet’s tailor, and was highly esteemed by him. His work included Margot’s riding-habits, black bodices for Catherine, a Spanish costume for Richelieu, pearls stitched onto Buckingham’s mantle, and dresses for M. de Cinq-Mars, Mademoiselle Ninon, Monsieur de Beaufort, and Marion de Lorme. He dressed M. le Prince, could not achieve a creditable fit for Colbert, and was said to have received letters of nobility from Mazarin in exchange for ceremonial vestments.

At Percerin’s room, Aramis’s influence over him proved stronger even than D’Artagnan’s. He agreed to make Porthos’s dress for the fête at Vaux—“To you I will not say nay, captain.”—and, after being outmanoeuvred by Aramis, supplied Lebrun with five patterns for copying the king’s dresses. He brought Moliere to observe at his ease, and one of his chief clerks was expected to attend Moliere’s fitting for the dresses Fouquet had ordered. Later, Percerin had already shown the patterns to Aramis, the bishop of Vannes.