This article considers some ideological, political, religious and cultural aspects of the image of Russia in the French newspaper Moniteur universel, mostly in the period between 1789 and 1793. A comparative analysis of the information contained in the ‘Politics’ section of the newspaper gives an idea of the attitudes and opinions of the editors and contributors vis-à-vis Russia and other countries, which were shaped by the pressure of the diverse and rapidly changing circumstances in French political life during the period in question. The author also proposes a classification scale of news related to Russia ranged in accordance with their content, subjects, importance and regularity. The table in the Annex contains a calculation of the references to different states for the years 1790, 1793 and 1796 produced by the author in order to correct the data presented in nineteenth-century Indices.