connection I cannot pass over what happened at Annecy in Savoy in the year 1585. On the edge of the Hasli Bridge there was seen for two hours an apple from which came so great and confused a noise that people were afraid to pass by there, although it was a much-used way. Everybody ran to see this thing, though no one dared to go near to it; until, as is always the case, at last one man more bold than the rest took a long stick and knocked the apple into the Thiou, a canal from the lake of Annecy which passes under the bridge; and after that nothing more was heard. It cannot be doubted that this apple was full of devils, and that a witch had been foiled in an attempt to give it to someone.
I have noticed also that demoniacs for the most part confess that the evil attacks them when they beat something; and from this it may be supposed that there is gluttony on their part; a sin abominable to God, who does not wish us to abuse the good things which it pleases Him to give us, or that instead of blessing and praising Him for His mercies, we should take the food He sends us immoderately or without remembering Him or thanking Him for it.
Let us learn, then, when we are about to eat and drink, to think of Him who is the author of all, and to bless our food with the sacred sign of the Cross as we have been taught by the Holy Fathers, S. Jerome, epist. ad Eusto. Tertullian, de coro. milit.; et alii.who held the Cross in such reverence that they said it delivered us from devils and made them flee from before us; for the necessity of using this sign before we eat is such that St. Gregory writes of a Nun who, in eating a lettuce, swallowed the devil with the lettuce because she had not made the sign of the Cross.