Parisian Scarlet.
The tincture of cochineal alone yields a purple color, which may be changed to a most beautiful scarlet by adding a solution of tin in aqua-regia, or muriatic acid, a discovery which was made by accident. Cornelius Drebbel, who died in London in 1634, having placed in his window an extract of cochineal, made with boiling water, for the purpose of filling a thermometer, some aqua-regia dropped into it from a phial, broken by accident, which stood above it, and converted the purple dye into a most beautiful scarlet. After some conjectures and experiments, he discovered that the tin by which the window frame was divided into squares had been dissolved by the aqua-regia, and was the cause of the change. Giles Gobelin, a dyer at Paris, used it for dyeing cloth. It became known as Parisian scarlet dye, and rose into such great repute that the populace declared that Gobelin had acquired his art from the devil.