At Logelbach, hard by Colmar, André Blum had been employed since March 1821 in the manufactories of Messrs. Haussman and Jordan. Four years later, the state of his pecuniary affairs had already set him at variance with his masters. In 1825, Monsieur Jordan had repeatedly remonstrated with him concerning his conduct and his ever-accumulating debts. Blum made fair promises of amendment, only to borrow afresh. In order to satisfy his pressing creditors, he put into circulation negotiable paper bearing the forged signature of his father, Jacob.
An innkeeper of Colmar, named Édighoffen, took in payment of a debt of 130 francs a promissory note for 750 francs. At nearly the same time, Blum tendered to one Simon, in discharge of a debt of 360 francs, a bill of exchange drawn for 400 francs. Both instruments appeared to have been subscribed by Jacob Blum to the order of his son. Upon falling due, both were protested. The elder Blum denied ever having set his hand to them, protested that he owed André nothing, and added that this was by no means the first trick of the kind played upon him. Interrogated by Monsieur Jordan, Blum began with stout denials, but soon broke down and confessed that he had forged the instruments himself.
The house of Haussman had already disbursed upwards of 800 francs on his account. Monsieur Jordan determined to bear the loss and dismiss the workman from his employ. Two artisans, Joseph Grimmer and Louis Vautrin, were set over Blum to take his place. This measure dealt a fatal blow both to his livelihood and to his standing within the shop. In the month of April, Blum confided to a fellow-workman that he bore a mortal hatred toward those who had ruined his credit with Monsieur Jordan, and that he would have his revenge, though he should have to wait twenty years for it. To another, he declared that he would slay the man who had calumniated him, and then make away with himself.
These menaces had not yet publicly designated their mark. Blum, in his capacity as overseer, had under his orders Joseph Goechlinger, a lad of sixteen years. Throughout the winter and spring of 1826, he dispatched this boy to Colmar to purchase tartar emetic. According to the opening account in the chronicle, the apprentice repaired three times to three different apothecaries, procuring three grains at each shop, making a total of twenty-seven grains. Blum also provided himself with rat-bane. A woman whom he brought into the workshop laid it upon small squares of paper in three separate spots; two or three days later, Blum gathered these papers up. He was thus master of two dangerous substances, and subsequent chemical analysis was to establish the presence of arsenic in several of his preparations.
On the 24th of April, between six and seven o'clock in the morning, Blum accosted Grimmer, who chanced to have some eggs, and asked him to dress them with browned butter. The fellow-workman consented, and presently brought him the dish together with bread. According to the narrative of the prosecution, Blum ate a small portion, sprinkled the remainder with a whitish powder, and stirred the dish. He then ceased eating, upon the pretext that the eggs were over-salted, invited Grimmer to make an end of them, and quitted the workshop. He went forthwith to Turckheim, where Grimmer’s wife dwelt, and caused word to be sent to her that her husband would not return home before eleven o’clock or midnight—if, indeed, he returned at all.
Grimmer ate a part of what remained. A sudden bitterness turned his stomach before he had finished, and he returned to his bench. About an hour later, violent colics seized him; he broke out into cold sweats and fell to vomiting. His companions instantly suspected that Blum had mingled some drug with the eggs. They administered broth, sweet oil, and milk. Grimmer survived. The alarm raised by the workmen, their prompt resolution to act, and the succour rendered on the shop floor were subsequently to figure prominently in the case for the Crown.
Blum returned towards five o'clock. Charged by his shopmates, he did not deny having introduced something into the dish. He retorted that he had eaten of it himself, and that so long as Grimmer was not dead, he cared not a jot. Thereupon he attempted to make away with the remnants: the chronicler records that he smeared them across the face of a workwoman and dashed the vessel to pieces. Judicial proceedings were instituted. Blum took to the woods surrounding Soultz and the neighbouring communes, but was apprehended on the 14th of June near Ollwiller. There were found upon his person a small piece of wood turned in the form of a stamp and a grey paper parcel containing a fatty substance.
A second search was conducted at the gaol of Colmar. In one of Blum’s pockets, the officers discovered a packet of linen tied with cord, containing a white powder. Chemical analysis revealed the presence of arsenic within the seized materials, both in pieces of sponge boiled in grease and in a sweetened vegetable powder. At the trial, these scientific assays were brought to bear against the depositions of the witnesses and Blum’s persistent denials concerning the eggs.
On the 18th of November 1826, he was brought before the Court of Assizes at Colmar to answer to charges of forgery of commercial paper and poisoning. Attired in deep black, he preserved throughout the reading of the indictment and the debates—so Champagnac observes—an assured and well-nigh brazen countenance. The witnesses recalled sundry earlier suspicions. Doctor Morel deposed to facts calculated to raise a presumption of prior attempts; he stated, among other things, that Blum’s own wife had nearly fallen a victim to one of them. Though this suspicion was aired before the bench, the trial of which the chapter treats was strictly confined to the forged bills and the episode of the poisoned eggs.
Pélicier, the chemist attached to the works, related that Blum had repeatedly solicited him for arsenic, alleging that rats were devouring his clothing and his food. Pélicier had steadily refused. He explained that he harboured grave fears that Blum might turn the drug against himself or against another. Following this refusal, Blum had offered to bring him a herring that the chemist might smear it with the poison; Pélicier had once more declined. This testimony set forth a sequence of importunities and the grounds for the chemist's refusal, not any poison that he had actually compounded for the workman.
Jacques Ohl, a workman aged sixty-one years, confirmed the uttering of multiple threats of vengeance. He recollected above all that Blum repeatedly vowed he would kill a man, though he should bide his time for twenty years, and that he would do “like that African.” Ohl noted that as he uttered this menace, Blum displayed a small parcel which he held in his hand. For his part, the apprentice Goechlinger recounted his errands for the tartar emetic. His testimony at the trial did not tally with the quantities set down at the beginning of the chapter: he stated that he had gone nine or ten times to Colmar, procuring nine grains on each occasion from different apothecaries, and delivering the packets to Blum alone. Goechlinger added that upon each of his returns, Blum would emerge from the workshop or from his chamber to receive the parcels in private. The record thus preserves two contradictory reckonings of these purchases: that of the initial narrative and that delivered from the witness-box by the youth.
Blum steadfastly denied every charge alleged against him. He spoke with vehement passion, yet his rejoinders appeared to the chronicler incoherent and destitute of all probability; at times he broke out into gross abuse of the witnesses. These men, however, stood unshaken in their depositions. Touching the forged bills, on the other hand, Blum made full and formal confession of his guilt. The Advocate-General pressed the prosecution with vigour, relying upon the weight of the testimony. The counsel for the defence besought the jury to view the charge of poisoning as a matter of mere conjecture, and to spare a young man, the father of three tender infants, whose aged parents were still living. Blum himself took the floor, likewise endeavouring to move their compassion.
After half an hour’s deliberation, the jury brought in a verdict of acquittal upon the charge of poisoning. Upon the count of forgery, they unanimously pronounced him guilty. The court sentenced him to twenty years of hard labour, to public exposure in the pillory, and to branding. Blum heard the sentence with composure, and then shouted to the bench that they had better have condemned him to the guillotine. Upon being conducted back to his cell, he attempted to wound himself with a knife. The hurt was pronounced slight; he was removed to the infirmary under the escort of a gendarme.