lynx-dev special characters

[Laura Eaves]

The following is only partly lynx related but I'm hoping
someone on this list can enlighten me as to what is happening
so I can figure out how to proceed.

I've been trying to exchange email in french with a friend
and so need to be able to print accented characters.
My friend told me I could insert special characters by holding down alt and
typing raw values in decimal on the numeric keypad.  Example: alt138
should print e with a grave accent over it.

The problem: The raw char codes I get when I type these alt
sequences is different from what my friend gets; hence, we see different
characters in each other's mail.

The weird part is that when I display her mail by catting it to
the screen I get mostly greek and mathematical chars, but when I
display the mail using lynx I get the correct characters.

Also, when I type, say, alt135 (‡) on the command line I get
c with a comma below it (what I want) but when I put this in a file
and run it through lynx it displays nothing.  When I type alt231 on the
command line I get a greek letter tao, but when I put this in a file and
run lynx it displays the c with the comma below it, which is what I want.

Can someone tell me what is going wrong?  What does lynx do with special chars?
How do other people exchange mail with special chars?
Merci beaucoup. (I don't know how to say thanks "in advance" in french...:)
--le