My wife, in a rather forlorn attempt to improve my foreign language skills, records a 30-minute TV program, "C'est ca, la vie", from a German satellite channel for me to watch each week. It's an "Improve your French" program for Germans; from German TV because it's better than anything on British TV, says my wife. They're very thorough these Germans: even the credits are given in French, though the names of cameramen, etc, are all Teutonic. The program was dated 1996 so presumably it's on its second or third broadcast in Germany.

This week's program was from Lille and was mainly based round talking to workers at the pyramid-shaped flag-factory there (don't ask). However, in the introductory minutes, we were shown views of Lille, including a quartet busking in the street. They were playing a tune recognisably similer to, though slightly different from, "The British Grenadiers", on (what sounded to my untutored ears like) renaissance instruments: the woodwind had that oboe-like reediness that I associate with "serpent". Thereafter the tune re-emerged from time to time during the program as musical background was thought to be necessary.

My question is about the history of this tune: has it any known French or Germanic connections (I couldn't see the buskers in the program's credits -- for all I know they could have been The English Mummerset Country Dance Band)? Were any musicians reading this, or known to anyone reading this, busking in Lille in 1996?