The concept of sociability, now firmly established in sociological analysis of relationships, came into use relatively recently. Despite it having borrowed its theoretical and methodological hypotheses from the Anglo-Saxon traditions, it perpetuates a specifically French conception of the analysis of social facts. The author's study of the historical conditions of its appearance describes the complex course leading to its acceptance in France, starting with its use by Simmel and then by Gurvitch in a paradoxically contradictory sense. In the early seventies it was introduced into the sociology of recreation, as a continuation of research on possible models for analysing French society without interpretations based on determinism of society by the economy. Later, from the mid-eighties, it was enriched by the North American research current known as network studies.