Zenobius Membre was born of good family in Bapaume, department of Pas-de-Calais, France. He was a cousin of Chrétien le Clercq, who was the historian of the Recollects in New France. It is supposed that the name Zenobius was taken by Membré upon entering the Recollect convent at Artois, where he was the first novice in the newly created Franciscan department of St. Anthony.
In 1675 Le Clercq and Membré were sent to Canada, where the latter tarried two or more years at the Recollect convent at Quebec. In 1678 he was ordered to Fort Frontenac on the north shore of Lake Ontario, whence he accompanied La Salle's men to their shipyard on Niagara River near Buffalo. Membré ministered to the shipwrights and the men preparing the Griffon, and in the summer of 1679, he sailed around the Great Lakes to Green Bay. There the Griffon was loaded with peltry and sent back, while Membré accompanied La Salle's party in small boats around Lake Michigan to St. Joseph River. The party tarried at Milwaukee River, the name of which first appears in Membré's account. Late in the year, La Salle's party reached its destination on the Illinois River, built Fort Crêvecoeur, and laid the keel of a small vessel. La Salle was called back to Fort Frontenac, because of the loss of the Griffon; Tonty was left in charge with the two priests, Membré and La Ribourde. Before La Salle's return, a party of Iroquois attacked the Illinois Indians; Tonty, the two priests, and three other men made a retreat through the woods to Lake Michigan. In this flight Father de la Ribourde was killed; Membré and the others, after suffering great hardships, finally reached the mission at De Pere. Membré met La Salle at Mackinac in the summer of 1681 and again accompanied him to Illinois. Thence, late in December, they set forth to explore the Mississippi and descended to its mouth, where, April 9, 1682, La Salle took possession for France of the Mississippi Valley and named it Louisiana. Father Zenobius signed the act of taking possession. When on the return journey La Salle was taken ill, the Recollect priest cared for him tenderly and on his recovery accompanied him to Canada and finally, at his request, to France. Arrived in the Old World, Membré was sent to the convent of the Recollects at Bapaume, his birthplace, where he was warden for several months. Thence he was summoned by La Salle to join a new expedition for the founding of a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi and was made superior of the group of Recollect missionaries that La Salle took with him. Missing the mouth of the Mississippi, the expedition landed in Texas, where a settlement was made on the Garcitas River in Lavaca Bay. There, at the colony named St. Louis, Membré and his companions passed two years. At one time a mission was attempted for the Cenis Indians, but because of threatened hostilities, Membré and Maximus le Clercq retreated to Fort St. Louis. There La Salle left them in 1687, and subsequently, the entire colony perished; how or why is not known.
Membré was a voluminous writer and the journals of his expedition were embodied in the history of his order in the New World, compiled by his cousin Chrétien le Clercq, under the title Premier Établissement de la Foy dans la Nouvelle France. His writings give certain details of La Salle's expedition not found elsewhere.
Membre's style as a writer is plain and simple, not that of a learned man. He had great physical hardihood and seems to have been adaptable to his surroundings and on good terms with his companions.
There is no information about his personal life.
