Accordingly, to France the young man went, and traveled in company with certain persons of rank. He stayed more than a year, and enjoyed himself greatly. He was at the age when all the world is new and interesting; and being of attractive appearance and high spirits, with plenty of money, the world gave him a cordial welcome. So far did he venture into the customs of the country, that he had a fight one night in a Paris street with somebody who crossed swords with him, and disarmed his antagonist. He had a right, according to the rules, to kill him, but he declined to do so. When he came home, he pleased his father much by his graceful behavior and elegant attire. "This day," says Mr. Pepys in his diary for August 26, 1664, "my wife tells me that Mr. Pen, Sir William's son, is come back from France, and came to visit her. A most modish person grown, she says, a fine gentleman." Pepys thinks that he is even a bit too French in his manner and conversation. "I remember your honour very well," writes a correspondent years after, "when you came newly out of France, and wore pantaloon breeches." This journey affected Penn all the rest of his life. It restrained him from following the absurder singularities of his associates. George Fox's leather suit he would have found impossible. He wore his hat in the Quaker way, and said "thee" and "thou," but otherwise he appears to have dressed and acted according to the conventions of polite society. He did, indeed, become a Quaker; but there were always Quakers who looked askance at him because he was so different from them, able to speak French and acquainted with the manners of drawing-rooms. In two respects, however, his visit to France differed from that of some of his companions in travel. There were places to which they went without him; and there were places to which he went without them. He kept himself from the grosser temptations of the country. "You have been as bad as other folks," said Sir John Robinson when Penn was on trial for preaching in the street. "When," cried Penn, "and where? I charge thee tell the company to my face." "Abroad," said Robinson, "and at home, too." "I make this bold challenge," answered Penn, "to all men, women and children upon earth, justly to accuse me with ever having seen me drunk, heard me swear, utter a curse, or speak one obscene word (much less that I ever made it my practice). I speak this to God's glory, that has ever preserved me from the power of those pollutions, and that from a child begot an hatred in me towards them." He went away alone for some months to the Protestant college of Saumur, where he devoted himself to a study of that primitive Christianity in which, as Loe had told him, was to be found the true ideal of the Christian Church. Here he acquired an acquaintance with the writings of the early Fathers, from whom he liked to quote.