[XeTeX] font shapes not defined resulting in accents too high?

[Cyril Niklaus]

Thanks for both the explanations and answers.
Using Ross's style (utf8accents) it works fine as does substituting the 
italics for the slanted fonts.
I do use Babel since my use of LaTeX is way too casual and I do not 
have that deep a knowledge about it.
It grows slowly thanks to the many helpful people on lists such as this 
one.
Merci beaucoup,
Cyril