After the fall of Napoleon, to which il had contributed no little, the weight of the Russian Empire in international affairs was significantly increased. The Congress of Vienna had laid the foundations for a new balance of power, but the reality of the first decades that followed was more a system of double hegemony by both peripheral powers, Russia and England. Such a context limited the alternatives of the French diplomacy between 1815 and 1848. It had to find a narrow space between those two potential allies or rivals. Basing on the instructions given by the French governments to their ambassadors in Russia, this paper comes to the conclusion there was a notable shift after 1830. Restoration ministers tended to consider Russia as their natural ally, to the point of contemplating common action to revise the Vienna system in 1829 at the time of the socalled «Polignac plan». The whole political climate changed after the 1830 Revolution. The July monarchy being reluctantly recognized by Emperor Nicholas I, the French sided with London on most issues and the relation with St. Petersburg remained always cool in spite of sporadic efforts from both sides to come to a better understanding.