Otto II., already crowned as king and Emperor, began his reign as one authorized "by the grace of God." Although only eighteen years old, and both physically and intellectually immature, his succession was immediately acknowledged by the rulers of the smaller German States. He was short and slender, and of such a ruddy complexion that the people gave him the name of "Otto the Red." He had been carefully educated, and possessed excellent qualities of heart and mind, but he had not been tried by adversity, like his father and grandfather, and failed to inherit either the patience or the energy of either. At first his mother, the widowed Empress Adelheid, conducted the government of the Empire, and with such prudence that all were satisfied. Soon, however, the Empress Theophania became jealous of her mother-in-law's influence, and the latter was compelled to retire to her former home in Burgundy. The first internal trouble came from Henry II., Duke of Bavaria, the son of Otto the Great's rebellious brother, and cousin of Otto II. He was ambitious to convert Bavaria into an independent kingdom: in fact he had himself crowned king at Ratisbon, but in 976 he was defeated, taken prisoner and banished to Holland by the Emperor. Bavaria was united to Suabia, and the Eastern provinces on the Danube were erected into a separate principality, which was the beginning of Austria as a new German power. [Sidenote: 978. BATTLE WITH THE SARACENS.] At the same time Otto II. was forced to carry on new wars with Bohemia and Denmark, in both of which he maintained the frontiers established by his father. But Lothar, king of France, used the opportunity to get possession of Lorraine and even to take Aix-la-Chapelle, Charlemagne's capital, in the summer of 978. The German people were so enraged at this treacherous invasion that Otto II. had no difficulty in raising an army of 60,000 men, with which he marched to Paris in the autumn of the same year. The city was so well fortified and defended that he found it prudent to raise the siege as winter approached; but first, on the heights of Montmartre, his army chanted a _Te Deum_ as a warning to the enemy within the walls. The strife was prolonged until 980, when it was settled by a personal interview of the Emperor and the king of France, at which Lorraine was restored to Germany.