Inside the great open porches the whole space was filled with the most delicate fourteenth century lacework in stone. The principal one showed on its frontal a statue of St. Michael conquering the dragon. The fine ironwork of the doors was made in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by natives of Amiens, whose names are forgotten. Walter Pater ("Miscellaneous Studies") says: "The builders of the church seem to have projected no very noticeable towers; though it is conventional to regret their absence, especially with visitors from England, where indeed cathedral and other towers are apt to be good and really make their mark.... The great western towers are lost in the west front, the grandest, perhaps the earliest, of its species--three profound sculptured portals; a double gallery above, the upper gallery carrying colossal images of twenty-two kings of the house of Judah, ancestors of our Lady; then the great rose; above it the Singers' Gallery, half marking the gable of the nave, and uniting at their topmost stories the twin, but not exactly equal or similar towers, oddly oblong in plan as if meant to carry pyramids or spires. In most cases these early Pointed churches are entangled, here and there, by the construction of the old round-arched style, the heavy Norman or other, Romanesque chapel or aisle, side by side, though in strange contrast, with the soaring new Gothic nave or transept. But of the older manner of the round arch, the 'plein-cintre,' Amiens has nowhere, or almost nowhere, a trace. The Pointed style, fully pronounced, but in all the purity of its first period, found here its completest expression." Amiens, the ancient capital of Picardy, was one of the greatest of the manufacturing towns of France. There were many large factories engaged in the production of cashmere, velvet, linen, and woolens, and in the early morning, and again at night, thousands of the employees filled the streets of the town on their way to and from work. It was called by the Ambiani, before it was captured by Cæsar, Samarobriva, and was their chief town. Christianity was introduced by St. Firmin in the year 301, which perhaps is as far back as any one cares to go in the matter. And history farther cautions the reader not to confound this St. Firmin with that other St. Firmin, who was only a "Confessor" or something of the sort. The Normans seem to have had a strong desire to put an end to the town, for they regularly pillaged and burned it. The place was ceded to the Duke of Burgundy in 1435, but was recovered in 1463 by Louis XI. The Spaniards conquered it in 1597, but Henry IV retook it from them. The Peace of Amiens between France, Great Britain, Spain and Holland was signed here in 1802.