After 1870, there was no free competition in petroleum in France. The industry fell into the hands of the great firms which, sheltered behind the customs barriers established by the National Assembly at Versailles immediately after the Commune, formed a cartel enjoying a veritable monopoly, and apportioning the different regions of France. These ten firms did not compete. They fixed their prices in agreement and shared among themselves the quantities to be sold. It would have been impossible for an eleventh to establish itself in France without their consent. In the original cartel of 1885 there were only three members; round these the other existing refineries grouped themselves in 1893. Thus the Cartel of Ten was formed:-- _Fenaille et Despeaux._ _Désmarais frères._ _Fils de A. Deutsch._ _Compagnie Industrielle des Pétroles._ _Raffinerie du Midi._ _Société Lille-Bonnières et Colombes_ (_L.B.C._). _Paix et Cie._ _G. Lesieur et ses fils._ _Compagnie Générale des Pétroles._ _Raffinerie de Pétrole du Nord._ These were the ten firms which, protected by the ridiculously high customs tariff fixed on July 8, 1871, had monopolized for their own profit the sale of the petroleum brought in by the then all-powerful _Standard_. With a total capital not exceeding 100 million francs, _they made for the ten of them a profit of 50 million francs a year_.[39] Thus, France paid more for her oil than any other country in Europe. Protected by its agreement with the trusts by which it guaranteed them the monopoly of its supplies, the cartel did not exert itself. We had only 400 tank-wagons, 54 ill-organized depots, and 17 refineries. The process of refining in France has never employed more than 300 to 400 men, of whom just over a third were specialists.[40] Their fleet of tankers in 1914 comprised only 14 small boats of 3,000 to 6,000 tons, of which only three sailed under the French flag. The others were under the British flag "in order to profit by the less burdensome shipping regulations." It was a veritable humiliation for France, when, at the beginning of the War, she had to beg Great Britain to be good enough to return them. Britain had requisitioned them. If the two countries had not been allied, France would have been disarmed from the very first day! Eight of these ships were sunk during the War, and when the cartel was asked to build new ones it refused, "so as not to give offence" to the great trusts.