Pre-print, Working paper: This paper is the fifth chapter of a book forthcoming in January 2007 under the title Histoire du marché financier français au 19 ème siècle (a history of the French capital market in the 19th century). He discusses the reasons for the development of securities in the early 19th century in France. He presents first the economic and legal conditions for the rise of a market for private issues (mostly utilities) and then the development of a market for foreign (mostly government) securities in Paris.