CLAUDE MARTIN. - Benedictine of the Congregation of St. Maur, born at Tours on 2 April 1619, died on 9 August 1696 in the abbey of Marmoutier (Tours), of which he had been prior since 1690. From his mother, who later became the Venerable Marie de l’Incarnation (q.v.), he derived a taste for the interior life and, at the same time, an aptitude for active life. He was eleven years old when his mother entered the monastery, and he, renouncing the position of secretary to Richelieu, entered the Congregation of St. Maur on 15 January 1641, exerting enormous influence there as prior of various abbeys (from 1652), assistant to the general (1668–75), definitor general (from 1672), and president of five General Chapters (1687–96). The Congregation owes to him not only a stricter observance but also its salvation during the crisis of 1682.
Far from theological disputes, he devoted himself to the editions of the Holy Fathers, then being undertaken by his confreres, and wrote various small works of meditation and prayer which were translated into Latin: *Les méditations chrétiennes* (2 vols., Paris 1669); *Conduite pour la retraite du mois* (ibid. 1670); *Pratique de la Règle de St Benoît* (ibid. 1674); *Méditations pour la fête et pour l'octave de St Ursule* (ibid. 1678), and others remaining in manuscript. He also published, with revisions, the writings and letters of his mother (ibid. 1677–84).