According to Oldenburg, the Parisians who frequented the Salon at the Hotel Montmor – the closest French equivalent to the Royal Society of London – had begun using the Latin word monstro to denote Leibniz. This from men who'd personally known Descartes and Fermat and who considered exaggeration an unspeakably vulgar habit. It had led to some etymological researches among some members of the R.S. Did they mean Leibniz was grotesquely misshapen? An unnatural hybrid of a man and something else? A divine warning?