characterizations of her: "The fact is, I never had a lover who was not a gentleman and was not in a good position in society." "I must have said a great many foolish things" wrote Margaret, "I am sure I did very few wise ones. I was foolish, hasty, but not vicious." Refusing to defend herself directly, Margaret Eaton expressed her opinion of her critics this way: "I was quite as independent as they, and had more powerful friends ... None of them had beauty, accomplishments or graces in society of any kind, and for these reasons ... they were jealous of me." Meacham observes that, "it's impossible ... to assess the truth of the charges" lodged by her enemies, but "she offers this "interesting defense": "Just let a little commonsense be exercised. While I do not pretend to be a saint, and do not think I was ever very much stocked with sense, and lay no claim to be a model woman in any way, I put it to the candor of the world whether the slanders which have been uttered against me are to be believed." Third marriage and later life Three years after the death of her second husband, Margaret Eaton married Antonio Gabriele Buchignani, an Italian music teacher and dancing master, on June 7, 1859. She was 59 and he was in his mid-20s. The marriage reignited much of the social stigma Margaret had carried earlier in life. In 1866, their seventh year of marriage, Buchignani ran off to Europe with the bulk of his wife's fortune as well as her 17-year-old granddaughter Emily E. Randolph. He married Randolph after he and Margaret divorced in 1869. Although Margaret Eaton obtained a divorce from Buchignani, she was not able to recover her financial standing. She died in poverty in Washington, D.C. on November 8, 1879, and was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery. References Further reading "Margaret 'Peggy' Eaton", The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, Tennessee Historical Society, Nashville, Tennessee, 1998. Allgor, Catherine. Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000. Coit, Margaret L. "Eaton, Margaret O'Neale", Notable American Women, Vol. 1, 4th ed., The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975 (reprinted from 1911). Latner, Richard B. "The Eaton Affair Reconsidered." Tennessee Historical Quarterly (1977): 330–51 in JSTOR Marszalek, John F. The Petticoat