Gore Vidal - Burr

Praise for

GORE VIDAL

and

BURR

OUR GREATEST LIVING MAN OF LETTERS.

George Frazier

The Boston Globe

Here we have Burrs storya tragedy, a comedy, a vibrant, leg-kicking life ... All of this and much, much more is told in a highly engaging book that teems with bons mots, aphorisms and ironic comments on the political process ... Enlightening, fresh and fun.

Margaret Manning

The Boston Globe

AN EXTRAORDINARILY

INTELLIGENT AND

ENTERTAINING NOVEL!

Peter S. Prescott

Newsweek

Burr is wicked entertainment of a very high order ... There arent many writers around today who can put together sentences as craftily as Gore Vidal, who promise a story and deliver it as well, for whom wit is not a mechanical toy that explodes in the face of the reader but a feather that tickles the bare feet of the imagination. Not to read Burr is to cheat yourself of considerable charm, intelligence and provocation!

George Dangerfield

The New York Times Book Review

A subtle, sometimes satirical, often brilliant recreation of the political ferment which surrounded the republic in its infancy.

John Barkham Reviews

IS THERE ANY AMERICAN

ANYWHERE MORE WORLDLY

THAN GORE VIDAL?

Stephen Koch

Saturday Review

Stendahlian ... It is probably impossible to be an American and not be fascinated and impressed by Vidals suave telescoping of our early history ... Dazzling ... Always absorbing.

The New Yorker

Like a bruised apple, Burr has long lain ready for peeling, and what a fascinating book Vidal has made of him!

Edward Weeks

Atlantic Monthly

Novels by Gore Vidal

WILLIWAW

THE CITY AND THE PILLAR

A SEARCH FOR THE KING

DARK GREEN, BRIGHT RED

THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS

MESSIAH

MYRA BRECKINRIDGE

TWO SISTERS

MYRON

KALKI

DULUTH

The Classical Novels:

JULIAN

CREATION

The American Chronicle Novels:

BURR

LINCOLN

1876

EMPIRE

HOLLYWOOD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

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BURR

Gore Vidal

BALLANTINE BOOKS NEW YORK

Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as unsold or destroyed and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

Copyright 1973 by Gore Vidal

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

http://www.randomhouse.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-3985

ISBN 0-345-33921-5

This edition published by arrangement with Random House, Inc.

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Ballantine Books Edition: September 1982

20 19 18 17 16

FOR MY NEPHEWS

Ivan, Hugh and Burr

BURR

A Special Despatch to the New York Evening Post:

SHORTLY BEFORE MIDNIGHT, July 1, 1833, Colonel Aaron Burr, aged seventy-seven, married Eliza Jumel, born Bowen fifty-eight years ago (more likely sixty-five but remember: she is prone to litigation!). The ceremony took place at Madame Jumels mansion on the Washington Heights and was performed by Doctor Bogart (will supply first name later). In attendance were Madame Jumels niece (some say daughter) and her husband Nelson Chase, a lawyer from Colonel Burrs Reade Street firm. This was the Colonels second marriage; a half-century ago he married Theodosia Prevost.

In 1804 Colonel Burrthen vice-president of the United Statesshot and killed General Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Three years after this lamentable affair, Colonel Burr was arrested by order of President Thomas Jefferson and charged with treason for having wanted to break up the United States. A court presided over by Chief Justice John Marshall found Colonel Burr innocent of treason but guilty of the misdemeanour of proposing an invasion of Spanish territory in order to make himself emperor of Mexico.

The new Mrs. Aaron Burr is the widow of the wine merchant Stephen Jumel; reputedly, she is the richest woman in New York City, having begun her days humbly but no doubt cheerfully in a brothel at Providence, Rhode Island....

I DONT SEEM ABLE to catch the right tone but since William Leggett has invited me to write about Colonel Burr for the Evening Post, I shall put in everything, and look forward to his response. I dont think, hell gulp air in his consumptive way, that the managing editor will allow any reference to what he calls a disorderly house.

Well, the euphemisms can come later. Lately, mysteriously, Leggett has shown a sudden interest in Colonel Burr, although his editor, Mr. Bryant, finds my employer unsavoury. Like so many men of the last century, he did not respect the virtue of women.

Because I am younger than Mr. Bryant, I find Colonel Burrs unsavouriness a nice contrast to the canting tone of our own day. The eighteenth-century man was not like usand Colonel Burr is an eighteenth-century man still alive and vigorous, with a new wife up here in Haarlem, and an old mistress in Jersey City. He is a man of perfect charm and fascination. A monster, in short. To be destroyed? I think that is what Leggett has in mind. But do I?

I sit now under the eaves of the Jumel mansion. Everyone is asleepexcept the bridal couple? Sombre thought, all that aged flesh commingled. I put it out of my mind.

The astonishing day began when Colonel Burr came out of his office and asked me to accompany him to the City Hotel where he was to meet a friend. As usual, he was mysterious. He makes even a trip to the barber seem like a plot to overthrow the state. Walking down Broadway, he positively skipped at my side, no trace of the stroke that half paralyzed him three years ago.

At the corner of Liberty Street the Colonel paused to buy a taffy-apple. The apple-woman knew him. But then every old New Yorker knows him by sight. The ordinary people greet him warmly while the respectable folk tend to cut him dead, not that he gives them much opportunity for he usually walks with eyes downcast, or focused on his companion. Yet sees everything.

For himself the Colonel, and not a dear worm in it! Obviously a joke between Burr and the old biddy. He addressed her graciously. Business men hurrying across from Wall Street quickly take him in with their eyes; and look away. He affects not to notice the sensation his physical presence still occasions.

Charlie, are you free for an adventure tonight? This was mumbled. He lacks a full complement of teeth and the taffy was not helpful to Dr. Dodges elaborate dentures.

Yes, Sir. What sort of adventure?

The large black eyes gave me a mischievous look. Half the fun of an adventure is the surprise.

In front of the City Hotel an omnibus was stopped: its horses neighing, pissing, groaning. Stout prosperous men converged on the hotel: sundown is their time of day to meet, gossip, drinkthen go home on foot because it is faster than by carriage. Now-a-days lower Broadway is blocked with traffic at this hour and everyone walks; even the decrepit John Jacob Astor can be seen crawling along the street like some ancient snail, his viscous track the allure of money.

Instead of going inside the hotel, the Colonel (put off by a group of Tammany sachems standing in the doorway?) turned into the graveyard of Trinity Church. I followed, obediently. I am always obedient What else can a none-too-efficient law cleric be? I cannot think why he keeps me on.