Alva’s instructions were strict. He was to demand the expulsion of the Huguenot ministers from France within thirty days; the interdiction of Protestant worship; acceptance of the decrees of the Council of Trent; profession of the Catholic religion by all office holders.[966] This policy of suppression and compulsion outlined by his sovereign was wholly in keeping with his, the duke’s, own judgment. But with greater penetration and less hesitation than Philip II, Alva recognized clearly the intimate connection between the politics of Flanders and the politics of France, and favored the adoption of a parallel line of conduct at once in the Low Countries. He was convinced that France was incapable of managing her own affairs and was a menace to other states, politically and religiously.[967] The means of repression which Spain had often urged had not produced the results desired: they had only delayed the total ruin of the nation. Suggestion and insinuation must be replaced by a more drastic policy. Assassination was a recognized, perhaps a quasi-legitimate political recourse in the eyes of the men of the sixteenth century. The old generation of French Catholics upon whom Spain could rely, the cardinal de Tournon, the duke of Guise, the marshal St. André, had passed away—one of them assassinated at the hands of a Huguenot. Tavannes and Vieilleville were reluctant to sacrifice country to religion, especially when a rival nation would profit thereby. The constable was the only old-time figure of prominence remaining, and he could not be relied on since the conflict between the marshal Montmorency and the cardinal of Lorraine, for he favored the side of his nephews and so was believed to be not far distant from the party of the admiral.[968] Power had fallen into the hands of the Huguenots, whose leaders now excelled in personal force. “The shortest, the most expeditious way, is to behead Condé, the admiral, D’Andelot, La Rochefoucauld, and Grammont,” Alva told the duke of Montpensier[969] and Montluc, the two most earnest French converts to this policy.[970]