Re: numbers instead of accented letters...

[Stefan Monnier]

> ;; pour h\303\251riter du $PATH quand Emacs est lanc\303\251 hors de la ligne 
> de commande

Do you also see it if you open the file with `emacs -Q`?
If so, try the following:

    emacs -Q ~/.emacs.el
    C-x RET r utf-8 RET

this should re-read the file, but forcing Emacs to interpret it as utf-8,
so presumably, "hériter" should now appear correctly.  Also the left part of
the mode-line should say "U" to mean.
If that's indeed, the case, then try to save the file (after making
a trivial modification to it like `SPC DEL`).

If this works without complaint, check the "U" in the mode-line: is it
still there?


        Stefan