Making re-search-forward search for \377

[Tyler Spivey]

I'm having a hell of a time trying to get re-search-forward to find a
\377 character in my buffer. Here is what I've tried so far, using
*scratch*:

1. C-q 377 RET M-< RET
(re-search-forward "\377") C-x C-e - not found.
(re-search-forward "[press C-q 377]") C-x C-e - this works.
If I turn multibyte off with M-X toggle-enable-multibyte-characters,
none of these work. My eventual goal is to do this in an elisp program,
but I need to get the basics
reliably working first. I've tried string-{as,to,make}-multibyte on the
"\377", with no luck. I've read the info pages on coding systems and
such, but I'm not sure what I'm missing here.