[1] Poncet de Brétigny led a group of colonists to Cayenne Island, where he disembarked on 4 March 1644 and collected those who remained of the first settlers.

[2] The next year Brétigny and most of the Europeans were killed by the Caribs, and the village of Cayenne was destroyed.

[5] Also known as the Compagnie de l’Amerique Equinoxial, it was a Paris-based joint stock company sponsored by notables such as the Abbé Marivault of the Sorbonne, the Sieur le Roux de Royville from Normandy, La Boulaye, Secretary of the Marine, and Jean-Jacques Dolu, grand audiencier at the court and intendant of New France in 1620.

[6] The priest Antoine Biet took part in the expedition as a chaplain, and describes it in his Voyage de la France équinoxiale en l'isle de Cayenne entrepris par les françois en l'année M. DC.

[6] Balthazar Le Roux de Royville, who led the expedition, was assassinated by the sailors and thrown overboard during the voyage.

[8][7] In September 1652 the expedition reached the tip of the Pointe du Mahury on the Island of Cayenne, where they found the 25 survivors of the earlier settlement.

[9] Jean de Laon, a king' engineer, replaced the wooden walls of the fort with a stone bastion called Fort Saint Michel to guard against attacks from the Caribs across the river, and attacks by the English and Dutch.

[13] Antoine Lefèbvre de La Barre, former intendant of the Bourbonnais and a very able man, was appointed governor of Cayenne.

[12] He left the port of La Rochelle, France, on 26 February 1664 with two warships and 400 soldiers.

[15] Lefèbvre de La Barre established a garrison at Fort Cépérou and started construction of a settlement of 200 huts.