During the three months ensuing, affairs of state diverted the mind of Leopold from his pious purpose. But one day, while engaged in his favourite pastime of boar hunting, he entered a thicket of alder trees on the verge of the river, and there, to his astonishment, his steed would not take one step further, but, defying both whip and spur, dropped upon his haunches, and lastly falling upon his knees, brought his noble rider to the ground. Starting to his feet in a princely passion, and winding the small horn that hung at his belt, Leopold would have dealt very summarily with the obstinate quadruped; but, turning round to address his retainers, who now rushed forward to their chief, he suddenly observed the identical veil of his wife, which had been so mysteriously carried off three months before! Leopold had always been a very piously given prince--but now that the finger of Providence was so clearly manifested his devotion became intense; and the same day it was determined that the tree on which the veil had been deposited by angelic hands, should be enclosed in a magnificent temple. Faithful to his vow, a spacious area was soon cleared, and in the course of three years, the monastery and monks of Klosterneuburg became the admiration of architects, and the theme of pious exaltation among all the faithful. The alder tree which had preserved the mysterious veil, was cased in gold and consigned to precious immortality; and in their religious processions branches of that sacred tree were usually carried in triumph, or woven into trophies and suspended over the altar. The fair Margravine, not to be outdone even by her husband in acts of piety, founded a nunnery at a commodious distance from the monastery, so that, by occasional intercourse, these holy friars and maidens might, without scandal or inconvenience, promote each other’s spiritual welfare, and leave a bright example of mortification and self-denial--“under the veil.”[11] The founder of this monastery became the tutelary saint of Austria--despite the sinfulness of his course more than hinted at in the monkish legend--and it was in the chapel of St. Leopold here that his body was laid; while the princely state of the saint was duly shown by the placing of a huge ducal hat of bronze or iron on the summit of one of the monastery’s domes while another of the domes is surmounted by the Imperial crown. Within the monastery is kept the actual ducal hat, which is used at the ceremony of swearing allegiance to a new ruler.