Comment by Amorymeltzer

Well, the Library of Congress entry notes him as "Gugusse the clown" and the Wikipedia entry[2] has a few citations (to books, I can't verify) that support it, but more to the point, "Pierrot" is a classic[3] stock character in e.g. commedia dell'arte. It says clown but I think our modern meaning of that word is a bit removed, and perhaps "harlequin" (another character[4]) is more what we'd say these days.

1: <https://www.loc.gov/item/2026125501/?loclr=blogloc>

2: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gugusse_and_the_Automaton>

3: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot>

4: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin>