=Whether Resumable.=—It has always been a subject of doubt whether grants were resumable at pleasure, or without some delinquency imputable to the vassal. Their duration in Europe was, at least, the life of the possessor, when they reverted[3.3.20] to the fisc. The whole of the ceremonies in cases of such lapse are decisive on this point in Mewar. The right to resume, therefore, may be presumed to exist; while the non-practice of it, the formalities of renewal being gone through, may be said to render the right a dead letter. But to prove its existence I need only mention, that so late as the reign of Rana Sangram,[3.3.21] the fiefs of Mewar were actually movable; and little more than a century and a half has passed since this practice ceased. Thus a Rathor would shift, with family, chattels, and retainers, from the north into the wilds of Chappan;[3.3.22] while the Saktawat relieved would occupy the plains at the foot of the Aravalli;[3.3.23] or a Chondawat would exchange his [165] abode on the banks of the Chambal with a Pramara or Chauhan from the table-mountain, the eastern boundary of Mewar.[3.3.24] Since these exchanges were occurring, it is evident the fiefs (_pattas_) were not grants in perpetuity. This is just the state of the benefices in France at an early period, as described by Gibbon, following Montesquieu: “Les bénéfices étoient amovibles; bientôt ils les rendirent perpétuels, et enfin héréditaires.”[3.3.25] This is the precise gradation of fiefs in Mewar; movable, perpetual, and then hereditary. The sons were occasionally permitted to succeed their fathers;[3.3.26] an indulgence which easily grew into a right, though the crown had the indubitable reversion. It is not, however, impossible that these changes[3.3.27] were not of ancient authority, but arose from the policy of the times to prevent infidelity. We ought to have a high opinion of princes who could produce an effect so powerful on the minds of a proud and turbulent nobility. The son was heir to the title and power over the vassals’ personals and movables, and to the allegiance of his father, but to nothing which could endanger that allegiance. A proper apportioning and mixture of the different clans was another good result to prevent their combinations in powerful families, which gave effect to rebellion, and has tended more than external causes to the ruin which the State of Mewar exhibits.