chaos: the situation was dominated by the Portuguese troops, in anarchic conditions. The opposition between Portuguese and Brazilians became increasingly evident. It can be clearly seen in Maria Leopoldina's correspondence that she warmly espoused the cause of the Brazilian people and came to desire the country's Independence, which is why she is loved and venerated by the Brazilians. The conspirator of São Cristóvão Maria Leopoldina grew up fearing popular revolutions due to the example of her great-aunt Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France, guillotined during the French Revolution. However, the fear of revolutions that would diminish the powers of the monarchs by popular revolt as happened in France in 1789 and recently in Portugal in 1820 was not seen in Brazil: "As soon as the autonomist movement and then the independence movement won Dom Pedro and Dona Leopoldina as protagonists, the Brazilians saw them as allies for the first time, and not as tyrants who should be defeated to give up power". Prepared to maintain fidelity to the absolutist monarchy, Maria Leopoldina did not imagine that she would be Regent in the troubled moments that preceded the break with Portugal, nor that she would defend the Independence of Brazil even before Dom Pedro, in a clear attitude contrary to the education she received. The Austrian Archduchess was always on the side of the Brazilian cause and, in several letters written to her friends in Europe, began to distinguish between Portuguese and Brazilians, making it clear what she thought about Portuguese domination over the colony. With the return of the court to Portugal and the appointment of Dom Pedro as Prince Regent of Brazil (25 April 1821), Maria Leopoldina conceived that staying in America was the solution for the defense of dynastic legitimacy against the liberal excesses that threatened the power of the Houses of Habsburg and Bragança in Brazil. Dom Pedro, by the other hand, without any political experience and overwhelmed by the current unstable situation, constantly asked his father to released him from the regency and allowed him and his family to return to Portugal – in September 1821, six months after King John VI's departure, he wrote: "I beg Your Majesty most urgently to release me from this onerous task". Maria Leopoldina's determination to stay became even more staunch thanks to the support of José Bonifácio de Andrada, and educated man from São Paulo; with his help,