Regard de la lanterne

A small, stone building with a steeply pitched roof sits in the middle of a quiet square, looking more like a miniature chapel than a piece of utility infrastructure. This is the Regard de la Lanterne, a sixteenth-century inspection point for the Belleville aqueduct. It provided access for workers to clean the pipes that carried water from local springs down into Paris. In seventeen twenty-three, a worker named Pierre-Charles Roy found himself trapped inside, narrowly escaping after a frantic struggle to open the heavy door.