The fall of Nubar was brought about by the _émeute_ of February, 1879, skilfully engineered by the Khedive, and Sir Rivers's position as Finance Minister became very difficult. The Consul-General Vivian (afterwards Lord Vivian) was a personal enemy of his and refrained from smoothing his path, and when, in March, the crafty Ismail arranged a little incident at Alexandria similar to that of February, the Foreign Office, instead of backing his demand for redress, advised him to resign, which he accordingly did. Soon, however, he was able to take a crushing revenge on the perfidious Ismail. On his return from Egypt he went straight to the Rothschilds and explained to them that their money was in great danger, as the Khedive intended to repudiate the debt, sheltering himself behind the excuse of constitutional government. The Rothschilds brought financial pressure to bear first on Downing Street and the Quai d'Orsay. Their efforts in these quarters being in vain, they applied to Bismarck, who was, perhaps, not sorry to have an excuse to state the intention of the German Government to intervene in the bondholders' interests in case the French and English Governments were unable to do so. German intervention would have been a quite unendurable solution, and the Sultan was at once approached from London and Paris and begged to depose his vassal. European pressure was too much for him, and, in spite of the many millions which he had paid in bribery to the Porte, Ismail received a curt notice from Sir Frank Lascelles, then acting English diplomatic agent in Egypt, that a telegram had reached him from the Sultan announcing that his viceregal duties had passed to his son Tewfik. Ismail cleared the treasury of its current account and retired with a final spoil of some three millions sterling. No one hindered his departure.