[3] Martin sat in the Assemblée Nationale as deputy for Aisne in 1871, and was elected on 13 June 1878 to seat number 38 of the Académie française,[4] but he left no mark as a politician.

Becoming associated with Paul Lacroix (Le Bibliophile Jacob), he planned with him a history of France to consist of excerpts from the chief chroniclers and historians, with original matter filling up gaps in the continuity.

In the first volume, which appeared in 1833, Histoire de France depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'en juillet 1830, the compiler promised to seek "always the dramatic and picturesque side of history, the one that interests the greatest number";[7] its success encouraged Martin to make the work his own, and his Histoire de France, in 15 volumes (1833–1836) which spans the space from earliest times to the French Revolution of 1789, was the result.

Martin's romanticized descriptions of Gauls as representing the Druidic key to France's essentialist "primitive tradition" are based on his longstanding close ties with the Saint-Simonian counter-Enlightenment philosopher Jean Reynaud[8] rather than on objective history.

As a free-thinking liberal republican outside the Roman Catholic Church, his prejudices often biased his judgment on the political and religious history of the ancien régime.