My original question was just asking about French Law and certain restaurant practices, that to the eye test, conflicted with each other. My intention was to learn from the veterans and how they handle these situations since they have much more experience than I do. I can now see that there are basically three different schools of thought. There are those that ignore and leave an appropriate pourboire...those, like me, that find it confusing and sweat it out, conflicted in what to do (I don't want to stiff the fabulous staff but I also don't want to be taken advantage of)...and there are those, like my wife, who say it's nothing to worry or even think about while on vacation.

I take pride with my tipping and often over-tip or tip when it's not expected, So, I need to take into perspective about how little it is that is causing me angst in the worse case scenario. The worse case scenario (which may not be the case), being that a 15% service fee IS already in the price and a conflicting "service non compris" message is on the website, menu, or bill brought to the table. In this case, I left a 20% "tip". Therefore, I possibly could have left 35% combined in service and pourboire. At restaurants that posted "service compris", I left 10% pourboire due to outstanding food and service plus the fact that most took the USD at par. In this situation, 25% in total was left. Therefore, it only cost a mere $15 extra on our average meal. Not much eh? JulieandKarl are correct, I'm on vacation and it shouldn't bother me taking in the grand scheme of things...but it still does.

I loved L'Auberge Gourmande and I will return but I know I'm going to be uneasy again even though it is just chump change in the big picture. My wife told me that she will treat and take care of transactions at this restaurant...lol

Thank you all for your thoughts.