The Pagliaccio visited Paris first in 1570.

He was clothed in white and wore big buttons.

Later, he wore a suit of bedtick, with white and blue checks, the coarse mattress cloth of the period.

Hence his name.

The word that meant straw was afterward used for mattress which was stuffed with straw and then for the buffoon, who wore the mattress cloth suit.
In France the Paillasse, as I have said, was the same as Pagliaccio.
Sometimes he wore a red checked suit, but the genuine one was known by the colors, white and blue.