I've been able to configure xterm so that I can type in accented characters.
I'm using X11R5, with iso8859 fonts, my shell is tcsh with the following 
definitions : 
setenv LC_CTYPE iso_8859_1
stty pass8

Then, I add the following in my .Xdefaults file:

XTerm*eightBitInput: True
XTerm*eightBitOutput: True

XTerm*VT100.Translations: #override \
Meta<Key>': keymap(aigu) \n\
Meta<Key>`: keymap(grave) \n\
Meta<Key>^: keymap(circ) \n\
Meta<Key>\\,: keymap(ced)
XTerm*VT100.aiguKeymap.translations:  \
~Shift <Key>e: string(0xe9) keymap(None)\n\
<Key>E: string(0xc9) keymap(None) \n\
~Shift <Key>c:  string(0xe7) \n\
<Key> C:  string(0xc7)
XTerm*VT100.graveKeymap.translations: \
~Shift <Key>e: string(0xe8) keymap(None)\n\
<Key>E: string(0xc8) keymap(None)\n\
~Shift <Key>u: string(0xf9) keymap(None)\n\
<Key>U: string(0xd9) keymap(None)\n\
~Shift <Key>a: string(0xe0) keymap(None)\n\
<Key>A: string(0xc0) keymap(None)
XTerm*VT100.circKeymap.translations:  \
~Shift <Key>e: string(0xea) keymap(None)\n\
<Key>E: string(0xca) keymap(None)\n\
~Shift <Key>u: string(0xfb) keymap(None)\n\
<Key>U: string(0xdb) keymap(None)\n\
~Shift <Key>i: string(0xee) keymap(None)\n\
<Key>I: string(0xce) keymap(None)\n\
~Shift <Key>o:  string(0xf4) keymap(None)\n\
<Key>O: string(0xd4) keymap(None)
XTerm*VT100.cedKeymap.translations: \
~Shift <Key>c:  string(0xe7) keymap(None)\n\
<Key> C:  string(0xc7) keymap(None)

This makes the Meta-{',`,^} keys behave as dead keys.

Of course, this only works for xterm. For emacs, my solution is to install the
Lucid version of GnuEmacs 19, and to load the x-compose library.


Hope this helps,


	Eric