Rochefort, Charente-Maritime in the context of "Musée national de la Marine"

Poitou-Charentes (French pronunciation: [pwatu ʃaʁɑ̃t] ; Occitan: Peitau-Charantas; Poitevin-Saintongeais: Poetou-Chérentes) was an administrative region on the southwest coast of France. It comprised four departments: Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne. It included the historical provinces of Angoumois, Aunis, Saintonge and Poitou.

Poitiers was the regional capital. Other important cities were La Rochelle, Niort, Angoulême, Châtellerault, Saintes, Rochefort and Royan.

The Bastille Day military parade, also known as the 14 July military parade, translation of the French name of Défilé militaire du 14 juillet, is a French military parade that has been held on the morning of Bastille Day, 14 July, each year in Paris since 1880, almost without exception. The parade passes down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées from Place Charles de Gaulle, centred around the Arc de Triomphe, to the Place de la Concorde, where the President stands, along with members of the Government, figures from the legislative branch, the Mayor of Paris, as well as foreign ambassadors to France.

It is a popular event in France, broadcast live on television; it is also one of the oldest regular military parades in the world. In some years, invited detachments of foreign troops take part in the parade and foreign statesmen attend as guests. Smaller military parades are held in French garrison cities, most notably Marseille, Toulon, Brest, Rochefort, Belfort, and Nice.

The Charente (French: [ʃaʁɑ̃t] ; Occitan: Charanta [tʃaˈɾantɔ]) is a 381-kilometre (237 mi) long river in southwestern France. Its source is in the Haute-Vienne département at Chéronnac, a small village near Rochechouart. It flows through the departments of Haute-Vienne, Charente, Vienne and Charente-Maritime. The river flows into the Atlantic Ocean near Rochefort.

Hermione was a 32-gun Concorde-class frigate of the French Navy. Designed for speed, she was one of the first ships of the French Navy to receive a copper sheathing. At the beginning of the Anglo-French War of 1778, she patrolled in the Bay of Biscay, escorting convoys and chasing privateers. She became famous when she ferried General La Fayette to the United States in 1780 in support of the rebels in the American Revolutionary War. She took an incidental role in the Battle of Cape Henry on 16 March 1781, and a major one in the action of 21 July 1781.

Hermione grounded and was wrecked in 1793. In 1997, construction of a replica ship started in Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, France; the new ship is likewise named Hermione.

The Pertuis d'Antioche (French pronunciation: [pɛʁtɥi d‿ɑ̃tjɔʃ], Passage of Antioch) is a strait on the Atlantic coast of Western France between two islands; Île de Ré to the north, and Oléron to the south. To the east lies the continental coast between the cities of La Rochelle and the naval arsenal of Rochefort; to the west the open ocean. The channel is above a league in breadth, and at the northern point of Oleron lies a ledge of rocks called the Antioches, with which the channel shares its name. The ledge extends a quarter league wide of the coast of Oleron, obliging traffic to follow the middle of the channel. The position of the ledge, and the entrance to the channel, was in past times marked with a lighthouse. The link with Antioch, a city in Turkey, is unclear.

Plongeur (French: [plɔ̃ʒœʁ]; "Diver") was a French submarine launched on 16 April 1863. She was the first submarine in the world to be propelled by mechanized (rather than human) power.

Captain Siméon Bourgeois, who made the plans, and naval constructor Charles Brun began working on the design in 1859 at Rochefort.