construction. It also funded insurance companies and building contractors. The bank had large investments in a transatlantic steamship line, urban gas lighting, a newspaper and the Paris Paris Métro public transit system. Other major banks included the Société Générale, and in the provinces the Crédit Lyonnais. After its defeat in 1871, France had to pay enormous reparations to Germany, with the German army continuing its occupation until the debt was paid. The 5 billion francs amounted to a fourth of France's GNP – and one-third of Germany's and was nearly double the usual annual exports of France. Observers thought the indemnity was unpayable and was designed to weaken France and justify long years of military occupation. However France paid it off in less than three years. The payments, in gold, acted as a powerful stimulus that dramatically increased the volume of French exports, and on the whole, produced positive economic benefits for France. The Paris Bourse or stock exchange emerged as a key market for investors to buy and sell securities. It was primarily a forward market, and it pioneered in creating a mutual guarantee fund so that failures of major brokers would not escalate into a devastating financial crisis. Speculators in the 1880s who disliked the control of the Bourse used a less regulated alternative the Coulisse. However, it collapsed in the face of the simultaneous failure of a number of its brokers in 1895–1896. The Bourse secured legislation that guaranteed its monopoly, increased control of the curb market, and reduced the risk of another financial panic. Industrialization France in 1815 was overwhelmingly a land of peasant farms, with some handicraft industry. Paris, and the other much smaller urban centers had little industry. On the onset of the nineteenth century, GDP per capita in France was lower than in Great Britain and the Netherlands. This was probably due to higher transaction costs, which were mainly caused by inefficient property rights and a transportation system geared more to military needs than to economic growth. Industry was dominated by small and medium-sized firms, which continued using traditional techniques of production because transportation barriers protected their local markets from outside competition. According to Roger Price, "modern forms of concentrated production were exceptional and coexisted with the typical establishments of a pre-industrial economy." In 1851, only 1.5 million people worked in firms which employed more than ten people, while 3 million were employed