Being cruel to animals or other people always comes back to bite the person doing the abuse. But so often, it seems Karma has extreme patience, and justice is not swift enough for our liking.
Well, for a couple of people who were abusive to animals, the trouble that came for them is all they may ever be remembered for. Over 75 years later, their stories are remembered as anecdotes shared all over the world.
Karma for a Kitten
It’s amazing to think that this story from 1949 in France is still circulating around the world today. It’s all about the swift justice that came after a man named Henri Villette tried to drown a kitten. Who could have sympathy for what became of him?
Image via Instagram/introvertcats
According to another version, Henri Villette set out one morning to drown the kitten. But instead, he met his swift end.
“Henri Villette, 67, set out yesterday morning to drown a kitten. The kitten returned home later. Henri didn’t. When he threw the cat into the water, Henri lost his balance and fell in. The kitten crawled out. Henri was drowned,” goes the story.
News clippings about Henri Villette and the kitten from all over the world.
Today, people remember Villette only as a sort of fable that tells a moral. Most versions are attributed to the Associated Press and appeared in newspapers in the United States, like the Gettysburg Times and the Ironwood Daily Globe from Michigan and the Des Moines Tribune from Iowa in 1949. The Daily Mirror in Sydney, Australia also shared the story as well as the Singapore Free Press.
In France, the brief story was slightly different and the location changed (see below). But the moral remains the same.
AI illustration
“He Wants To Drown His Cat. It’s him who stays there”
“Alencon, September 21. – While wanting to drown a young cat, which he wanted to get rid of, Mr. Henri Villette, 67 years old, cooper in Alencon, fell into a washhouse, where he drowned, while the young cat escaped with only a strong bath,” stated the story from September 1949. via Facebook‘s “Photos de dans le temps.”
Image via Facebook‘s “Photos de dans le temps.”
The War of the Worlds
The story also appeared in TIME magazine, dating to October 3, 1949, with more interesting details.
“Cool and confident in his superior strength and wisdom one day last week, Henri Villette, a 67-year-old barrelmaker of Alencon, clapped an unwanted kitten into a musette bag and set out for the Sarthe River to drown it. On the river’s bank he slipped and fell. The kitten crawled to safety. Henri’s drowned body was found later by local firemen,” the story states.
The River Sarthe via Flickr
The anecdote is included with a number of curious animal-related stories titled, “Flora & Fauna: The War of the Worlds.” The stories pitted man against nature, and Mother Nature was winning, like she always does eventually.
A couple of years later, in 1952, another story of survival and justice for a wronged animal appeared in Alencon. Even stranger, it also involved a person with the name of Villette!
Justice for a Nearby Dog
The Provencal Gazette posted this story on March 3, 1952. A farm worker named René Villette, 30, had thrown a shepherd dog into a well in August 1951. Although Karma was not swift, she eventually arrived the same.
“Residents were surprised in recent days to find the animal found wandering at the bottom of its prison. The dog had lived for seven months at the bottom of a well, feeding only on the corpses of the dead animals that the neighbors threw there. The agricultural worker was the subject of criminal charges and will be prosecuted in court,” the story stated (as translated by Google).
The story about farm worker named René Villette, 30, who threw a dog in a well via Facebook.
On Facebook, some speculated if René was related to Henri Villette! If so, these folks were certainly cruel! We can’t be sure, but it’s bizarre that they share the same last name and relatively nearby locations. As for the fate of these two, many said it was ‘divine justice,’ and Karma for treating the animals so badly.
It’s a tale as old as time: If you mistreat Mother Nature, Karma and Justice may have something in store for you one day. Such a lesson resonates more than ever in today’s world.
Featured image is AI-generated
