On calmer reflection, however, he became convinced of the uselessness of such severity, for William, he discovered, though moping about, dejected and unhappy, was still keeping up a lively correspondence with his Quaker friends, so he resolved to try other methods. Knowing by experience the power of worldly pleasures to divert the mind of youth and drown serious thought in the intoxication of the senses, he determined to resort to this dangerous remedy for his son, whose ideas of life, to his mind, needed a radical change. He therefore arranged for William to join a party of young gentlemen of rank who were about to set out on a tour of the continent, first visiting France and its gay capital, reckoning shrewdly that constant association with young companions so little in sympathy with Quaker ideas and habits would soon convert his son to other views. Or if this perhaps did not fully accomplish the purpose, the allurements of Paris, where King Louis the Fourteenth and his brilliant court set such an example of luxury and licentiousness, could not fail to complete the cure. Little to young Penn’s taste as was this journey, and especially the society in which he was to make it, he did not care to renew his father’s scarcely cooled anger by opposing it, nor was life at home under existing circumstances especially pleasant or comfortable. He yielded therefore without protest to his father’s wishes and set out for Paris with the companions chosen for him, well provided with letters of introduction which would admit him to the highest circles of French society. The correctness of the admiral’s judgment proved well founded, and the associations into which he had thrown his son only too well fitted to work the desired change. In spite of his inward resistance young Penn found himself drawn into a whirl of gayety and pleasure for which he soon grew to have more and more fondness and which left him no time for serious thought. He was presented to the King and became a welcome and frequent guest at that dissolute court. The life of license and luxury by which he was surrounded and against which he had almost ceased to struggle failed, however, entirely to subdue his better nature, as the following incident will show.