The Peterhof Gallery is part of a tradition of very strong historical relations between France and Russia, established at the time when families of the French and Russian aristocracy regularly traveled between the respective Courts of these two countries. The Russian Court once communicated in French rather than Russian and the official documents of the Tsar's government were written in the language of the country as well as in the traditional language of diplomats of the time, which was French. These cultural and intellectual relations between the greats of the two countries abruptly ceased with Napoleon's attack against the friendly Russian state. Despite the shock of the invasion, the Russian nobility retained lasting ties of friendship with the French nobility, so much so that a few decades later many "White Russians", fleeing the October Revolution of 1917, went into exile in Paris, founding a large community there.