"Europeans had often thought that somewhere in the world must dwell a noble race, remnants of that golden age before man became corrupted by civilization. As reports of Indians filtered back to Europe... Michelle de Montaigne took the trouble to talk with explorers, to read the traveler's chronicles, and even to meet three Indians who had been brought as curiosities to the Court of Versailles. He concluded that the Noble Savage has at last been found, for the Indian "hath... no name of magistrate, nor of politics... no contracts... no apparel but natural... The very words that import a lie, falsehood, treason, covetousness, envy, detraction, were not heard among them." Montaigne presented an idealized notion about the aborigines ...that foreshadowed the Noble Savage of Jean Jacques Rousseau."