Hello Akira
Tourcoing & Lille were part of Walloon Flanders. Today they're in North France, on the border of Belgium. They were annexed into France by Louis XIV 1668, but before that between 1520-1668, the time period your looking at, they were part of the Netherlands, which itself was part of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by the German/Spanish Hapsburg dynasty. Before 1520 it was part of the Duchy of Burgundy. The Duke was in theory a vassal of the French Crown, but in reality more or less independent!
All very confusing I know, as things often are in border areas, took me a long time to get to grips with it! Suffice to say the people that lived there at time your looking at, like your Pollets, were Walloon, not French, and subjects of the Spanish crown. But today after being so long in France, the people there consider themselves French, and Walloon has all but died out, instead a dialect of French, Picard is spoken. Nevertheless the rest of France, well alot of them, does seprate them, and sort of looks down on them a bit, calling them 'ch'tis'! There's an excellent film called 'Welcome to the Sticks' which was a smash hit in France a few years back, and revolves around a man from the South of France, who goes to this region, and lives among the 'natives'! Good display of French attitudes to them.
