>I wonder if something like this might work:

Dim s1 As String = theDataset.GetXml()
>
>Dim bytes As Byte() = Encoding.[Default].GetBytes(s1)
>Dim UTF8String As String = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(bytes)
>Dim dec As String = New XmlDocument().CreateXmlDeclaration("1.0", "UTF-8", Nothing).OuterXml
>Dim XMLoutput As String = dec & UTF8String

No, this changes the output. Basically, at the client site, when showing the data in a messagebox, for example, I can no longer see the French characters but a symbol instead.