At the turn of the 19th century the French society came into direct contact with Russian reality. The Napoleonic military bureaucracy, which put the French press in the service of imperial diplomacy and military strategy, formed images of all countries that turned out to be military opponents of France using similar templates. However, the Russian Empire in the French press of the epoch served as a classic example of a “different” society and “other” culture. Description of Russia in the newspapers and its image influenced on the public opinion in France, predetermining the ways and phases of French-Russian relations for many decades.