French manners - bathroom included

As we know, the French find good manners to be very important. Bon jour, bon soir, merci, all critical statements to make in France in any shop or restaurant. But when attending an event at someone's home, manners rise to another level. As we learned at FIAF, bringing desserts to a dinner party is important, flowers or other appropriate gift to a birthday and so on. But, we had an entire dialogue at a party in December about bathroom use. D. had read that when invited to someone's home in France it is impolite to use the toilet. As D. is a completely uninhibited person, he raised the topic among friends at this holiday party to test the waters. The attendees were a mixture of French, Americans, Canadians, Brits and other nationalities, so it was a "relief" to learn (pun intended), after drinking water and soda that it was not unacceptable to use the bathroom and we could partake before getting in the car for an hour drive home. So, bring on the water, coffee, and cake.