`titrebMilitary games in the XVIIIth century: a neglected kind of urban sociability `/titreb In spite of numerous documents, the urban military games companies didn’t arouse many global studies. These societies, which are distributed over the territory in an unequal way, are present in the whole urban hierarchy, from small towns to the capital. They could allow to know better these circles of the upper middle class that interest more and more, and to describe sociability networks often kept discreet and inaccessible to the historian. The article talk about the companies activities and shows that they don’t number only good shooters among their ranks. Then it shows the social characteristics of knights groups before relating the identity crisis crossed during the XVIIIth century. These bow, crossbow and arquebus companies lost their military role. They seem to be expensive entertainments only reserved for the most comfortable inhabitants of towns. The dictionary authors, like the moralists of the time, don’t know anymore what they are between military exercise, parade, theater, and even, in a pre-revolution time favorable to communes, good citizens trying to promote the ideal of the citizen-soldier, in a Roman way.