The rue du Télégraphe, running south off the eastern end of rue de Belleville alongside the Cimetière de Belleville, is named in memory of Claude Chappe's invention of the optical telegraph. Chappe first tested his device here in September 1792, in a corner of the cemetery. When word of his activities got out, he was nearly lynched by a mob that assumed he was trying to signal to the king, who was at that time imprisoned in the Temple. Eventually, two lines were set up, from Belleville to Strasbourg and the east, and from Montmartre to Lille and the north. By 1840, it was possible to send a message to Calais in three minutes, via 27 relays, and to Strasbourg in seven minutes, using 46 relays. Chappe himself did not live to see the fruits of his invention: his patent was contested in 1805, and distraught, he threw himself into a sewer (his grave is in nearby Père-Lachaise).
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