 In 1871 the bulk of the diocese became part of German Empire, while small fringes remained with France.On 10 July 1874 Strasbourg diocese, with its diocesan ambit reconfined to the borders of then German Alsace, gaining territory from the Diocese of Saint-Dié, and losing territory to the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Besançon, and it became an exempt diocese, immediately subject to the Holy See instead of part of any ecclesiastical province.When the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State was enacted, doing away with public-law religious corporations, this did not apply to the Strasbourg diocese which was then being within Germany.