Short answers, pulled from the story.
Valence was founded in 121 BC, after the Roman army of Quintus Fabius Maximus defeated the Allobroges at the Battle of the Isère River. It grew from a Roman military outpost into a colony under Augustus and became an important city of Viennensis Prima under Valentinian I.
Valence sits on the left bank of the Rhône, 100 km south of Lyon, at the point where every north-south route between Paris and the Mediterranean converges. The local saying 'À Valence le Midi commence' captures this position: at Valence, the south begins.
Valence suffered Allied aerial bombardments in 1944 aimed at destroying the Rhône bridge. On the 15th of August, bombs destroyed several city quarters including the hospital, killing 280 people. Four days later, a German train loaded with nitroglycerin exploded in the La Palla quarter, causing 335 casualties.
Napoleon Bonaparte was stationed in Valence from 1785 to 1786, serving with the La Fère artillery regiment. He returned multiple times afterward, including on the 12th of October 1799 during his return from the Egyptian expedition, when he met the future Cardinal Spina at the posthouse.
Louis Mandrin was a celebrated French smuggler who stole from the Ferme Générale, the royal tax-farming system, and redistributed the proceeds. He was captured, tried, and executed in Valence in May 1755, dying on the breaking wheel. His body was displayed for three days as crowds gathered from across the region to pay tribute.
Valence's Armenian community traces back to 1922, when local employers recruited 150 refugees who had fled the 1915 genocide. By 1956, 2,500 Armenians lived in Valence, representing 6 percent of the city's population and making it the fourth-largest Armenian community in France. Today 7,500 people in the city belong to this community, with 28 active associations.