During the night of December 2 to 3, 1850, two young girls covered in blood beat upon a neighbour's door in Nivelles. Sophie and Euphrasie Bomal cried out for aid on behalf of their mother, who remained within the dwelling where fire was overtaking the upper chambers. They declared that their father had just struck them down. The neighbours hastened toward the conflagration; one ascended by means of a ladder, brought children to safety, and then plunged back into the smoke to extricate the mother and the eldest daughter, Sidonie. The trial account published a decade later in Der neue Pitaval charges Rémi Bomal with the assault and the arson; a study by Louis Gallait, preserved in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, bears the inscription “Remi Bomal” and the date of April 15, 1851, half an hour following the execution. One must scrupulously distinguish this material record from the particulars of the trial, known to us here solely through retrospective reporting.
The family residence in Nivelles belonged to Ermelinde Deligne, Bomal's wife, and comprised a ground floor and an upper storey. According to the chronicle, the father was employed in the excise administration and had for some time been stationed at Genappe; his wife and their six children resided in the Nivelles house. The text lists five daughters and one son, naming the eldest Sidonie, followed by Sophie, Euphrasie, Thérèse, Joséphine, and Désiré, the youngest. Certain spellings vary across the transcription, and the recorded ages do not always align from one passage to the next. The narrative nevertheless clarifies the arrangement of the bedchambers and the path traversed by the children to reach the neighbouring doorway.
The mother slept with Sidonie in the rear chamber of the upper floor. The other children occupied the room facing the street. Bomal lodged at Genappe. A physical separation had thus already divided the household; it furnished the narrative with the topography, the prospective movements, and the alibis that were to be contested at the assizes.
On the night of the fire, cries of “Fire!” and pleas for succour roused the vicinity. Sophie and Euphrasie had fled bleeding; they accused their father. Ignace Michel and his tenant David Gilbert ran first to alert the authorities, while passersby beheld the flames through the windows. Louis Marain succeeded in penetrating the house. A short ladder did not allow him to reach the casement; nevertheless, he managed to hoist himself to the upper storey, gathered up three young children, and handed them down to the persons assembled below.
The fire was gaining ground in the children’s chamber, and thick smoke rendered every step hazardous. Marain retreated, then entered anew. He caught sight of the mother lying upon her bed, wounded in the breast. Re-entering once more through the window, he carried Sidonie to the aperture and transferred her to the rescuers stationed on the ladder. Thereafter he succeeded in extricating the mother. The chronicle does not present these actions as solitary heroism: it depicts, rather, several individuals who, once the alarm was sounded, strived to rescue whomever lay within their reach.
Ermelinde succumbed to her injuries. Sidonie survived the night but died on December 3, a few hours after being brought out. Sophie and Euphrasie had suffered wounds to the arms and chest; the text estimates their required convalescence at twenty and ten days, respectively. The author cites medical testimony stating that the lacerations were inflicted by a sharp, pointed instrument, and that not all could be accounted for by the knife recovered beneath the debris. The existence of another blade became a subject of debate, though it remains a hypothesis that the text alone cannot independently verify.
The ruins yielded further clues: straw and timber arranged upon the staircase, a heap of combustibles on the ground floor, garments discarded in the courtyard, a cord, and a knife with a blunted point. The chronicler discerns in these the traces of a premeditated fire. He notes as well footprints and marks discovered about a window in Genappe. These were elements marshalled against Bomal by the judicial inquiry and the arguments of the prosecution; they ought not to be mistaken for independently preserved forensic exhibits.
In the morning, the gendarmes proceeded to Genappe and found Bomal in bed. The chronicle states that a bloodstained garment was discovered between the sheets, alongside damp, muddy stockings, two pairs of pistols, daggers, and a rope to which small pieces of wood had been fastened. A pair of shoes was subsequently recovered in the garden. The theory of the prosecution linked these objects to a nocturnal departure and a return effected by means of a rope ladder. Bomal contested certain particulars, yet conceded at the trial that he had prepared a rope and quitted his chamber.
His itinerary on the eve of the tragedy likewise fed suspicion. On the first of December, Bomal had travelled to Nivelles on business. The following day, before returning to Genappe, he instructed his daughter Joséphine to purchase several boxes of chemical matches; the report notes that he slipped them into his pocket. He then showed himself in various public places before returning to his lodgings at Genappe. In the evening, he removed his shoes and requested to be wakened at an early hour. According to the prosecutors, this deliberate sequence of acts was contrived to foster the belief that he had never left his room during the night. In court, Bomal confirmed a portion of the material acts, though he denied the sinister construction placed upon them.
The case possessed an ominous precedent. The chronicle recalls that a fire had broken out in the house in January 1841, when neighbours discovered combustibles heaped against doors and furniture. Bomal had been on duty in Genappe that night; several witnesses attributed to him conduct that aroused suspicion, though no prior conviction is recorded. In 1851, interrogated regarding that incident, he admitted having made the attempt. The text thus establishes a link between the two fires; yet this retrospective narrative must not be confounded with a formal judicial verdict rendered upon the events of 1841.
The trial opened before the Court of Assizes of Brabant, sitting in Brussels, on February 26, 1851. The Pitaval account presents the debate as revolving principally around intent and mental capacity, Bomal having admitted to a portion of the acts. The presiding judge inquired why he had sought to destroy his family. According to the record, he replied that his affairs were in a desperate pass and that he deemed it preferable for his kin to cease to exist rather than suffer the want of bread. He maintained that he had acted under the sway of a fixed idea and retained no distinct recollection of each individual gesture.
The prosecution rejected this explanation. The public prosecutor delineated an extended course of preparation: the purchase of matches, combustibles deposited within the house, garments and rope, followed by a stealthy return to Genappe. He emphasised as well the abortive attempt of 1841 and the wounds inflicted upon the children. In his address, he characterised the acts as a calculated design and denounced what he deemed a self-serving pretext. These appraisals belong to the prosecution as reported by the chronicler, not to an independent psychiatric assessment of Bomal's character.
The defence argued, on the contrary, that a mental derangement had supervened at the moment of the crime. Counsel stressed the affection Bomal professed for his children and urged the jury to recognise an episode of transient madness. The chronicler criticises both positions: the prosecutor, in his view, fails to unravel the enigma of the motive, while defence counsel fails to elevate the alleged fixed idea to the threshold of legal irresponsibility. This editorial critique does not constitute the verdict. It illustrates how a press account can dramatise the courtroom proceedings whilst professing to elucidate what the trial itself left obscure.
The transcript further cites medical opinions regarding the weapons that may have inflicted the wounds. One practitioner considered that the knife recovered from the ashes could not have caused all the lacerations; Bomal persisted in maintaining that he had employed no other. A second point of contention involved the pistols, which the accused claimed to keep loaded as a matter of habit for his personal protection. He admitted to the arson and acknowledged various movements, yet denied having taken up a dagger. The chronicle does not place the entirety of the physical evidence before the reader, and its quotations of the courtroom exchanges are mediated through the chronicler of 1860.
Seventy-four questions were submitted to the jury. Following a deliberation of roughly an hour and a half, the account notes that Bomal was found guilty on fifty-four points, notably murder and attempted arson; the court pronounced the sentence of death. Bomal added nothing when asked if he had any observations to submit. The judicial outcome is unambiguous in the text, even if the precise phrasing of each question cannot be recovered without recourse to the original case file or minute book.
An independent source confirms the ultimate conclusion: the catalogue of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium describes the oil study by Louis Gallait entitled The Head of Bomal and notes the inscription “15 April 1851 / 1/2 h. after the execution.” This corroborates the execution of Rémi Bomal on that date; it does not, however, corroborate the substance of his confessions or the courtroom dialogue. Such is the boundary to be preserved: a retrospective chronicle reconstructs the proceedings with abundant detail, a museum artifact dates an execution, and the reader must not ascribe to the one what the other does not document.