Short answers, pulled from the story.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert chose a quiet spot on the Charente river to build a new naval base in December 1665. The town rose from nothing as a political decree created what historians call a ville nouvelle or new town.
Over 800 Roman Catholic priests boarded prison ships in the harbor during the Jacobin period between 1790 and 1795. They refused to take the anti-Papal oath required by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and most died due to inhumane conditions aboard those floating prisons.
Napoleon Bonaparte met Captain F. L. Maitland aboard HMS Bellerophon on the 17th of July 1815 to end the Hundred Days campaign. This event concluded his brief return to power after escaping exile on Elba and marked the final defeat of the Emperor who had reshaped Europe through war and diplomacy.
A rare transporter bridge called the Rochefort-Martrou Transporter Bridge rose from the water in 1900. It consists of a high level bridge containing a transport mechanism from which a ferry platform is suspended and remains one of only eight still in service worldwide.
Louis-René Levassor de Latouche Tréville was born here between 1745 and 1804 as a future French admiral while Maurice Merleau-Ponty worked as a philosopher until his death in 1961 after being born in 1908. Pierre Loti lived from 1850 to 1923 and served as both a naval officer and novelist before his house became a museum.