The kind heart of the king was affected by this misery. He sent nearly all his plate to be melted and coined at the mint for the relief of the poor. This noble example inspired others. General enthusiasm was aroused, and the hall of the National Assembly was crowded with the charitable bringing voluntary contributions for the relief of the poor. Rich men sent in their plate, patriotic ladies presented their caskets of jewelry, and the wives of tradesmen, artists, and mechanics brought the marriage gifts which they had received and the ornaments which embellished their dwellings. Farmers sent in bags of corn, and even poor women and children offered their mites. A school-boy came with a few pieces of gold which his parents had sent to him for spending-money. This overflowing of charity presented a touching display of the characteristic magnanimity and impulsiveness of the French people.[222] [Illustration: PATRIOTIC CONTRIBUTIONS.] But private charity, however profuse, is quite inadequate to the wants of a nation. These sums were soon expended, and still the unemployed poor crawled fasting and emaciated about the streets. Necker's plans for loans were frustrated. No one would lend. To whom should he lend? The old régime was dying; the new not yet born. In this terrible emergency Necker proposed the desperate measure of imposing a tax of one quarter of every man's income, declaring that there was no other refuge from bankruptcy. The interest upon the public debt could no longer be paid, the wages of the soldiers were in arrears, and the treasury utterly empty. The proposal frightened the Assembly, but Mirabeau ascended the tribune, and in one of his most impassioned appeals carried the measure by acclamation.[223] The distracted state of the kingdom, however, prevented the act thus enthusiastically adopted from being carried into effect.[224] Thomas Jefferson was at this time, as we have before mentioned, the American minister in Paris, and was constantly consulted by the leaders of the Revolution. In his memoirs, speaking of these events, he writes, "The first question, whether there should be a king, met with no opposition, and it was readily agreed that the government of France should be monarchical and hereditary. "Shall the king have a negative on the laws? Shall that negative be absolute, or suspensive only? Shall there be two chambers of legislation, or one only? If two, shall one of them be hereditary, or for life, or for a fixed term; and named by the king or elected by the people?