Cimetière de Belleville

The Cimetière de Belleville sits at an impressive elevation of one hundred and twenty-eight meters, marking it as one of the highest points in all of Paris. This location was not always a place for the dead. Before it opened in eighteen hundred and eight, the grounds were part of the private estate of the Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau family. The site also functioned as a key station for the Chappe optical telegraph system in the late eighteenth century, which used a series of mechanical arms to transmit messages across France long before electronic communication existed. You are standing on land that once served as a high-tech hub for the nation's communication network.