I get Argument of OT1' has an extra } when I have an accents in the last name (macOS, TeXShop)

Question

I see this problem being reported for other TeX editors, but not for TeXShop, so I will post here.
I prefer to use the amsalpha style, but it doesn't seem to like it when there is an accented letter within the first three letters of the author's last name.
One of my entries in my bib file has
@Article{Des82,
  author =       {J. {D{'e}sarm{'e}nien}},
  title =        {Un analogue des congruences de {K}ummer pour les $q$-nombres d'{E}uler},
  journal =      "European J. Combin.",
  year =         {1982},
  volume =    {3},
  number =    {1},
  month =     {},
  pages =     {19--28},
  note =      {},
  annote =    {}
}

And this produces an error I wrote in the title. So I go check what's going on with the bbl file, and I see the following.
providecommand{bysame}{leavevmodehbox to3em{hrulefill}thinspace}
providecommand{MR}{relaxifhmodeunskipspacefi MR }
% MRhref is called by the amsart/book/proc definition of MR.
providecommand{MRhref}[2]{%
  href{http://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=#1}{#2}
}
providecommand{href}[2]{#2}
begin{thebibliography}{{D{'}}82}

bibitem[{D{'}}82]{Des82}
J.~{D{'e}sarm{'e}nien}, emph{Un analogue des congruences de {K}ummer pour
  les $q$-nombres d'{E}uler}, European J. Combin. textbf{3} (1982), no.~1,
  19--28.

end{thebibliography}

Not hard to see which part is causing issues - {{D{'}}82}. I used {'{e}} but this doesn't help. I would appreciate any help on how to circumvent this issue.
Finally, I changed the style with amsplain instead to see what happens, but I didn't like how the reference numbers are in the form 1. rather than [1] in the References list.
Anyway, any help will be appreciated. Thank you!

egreg · Accepted Answer

The alphabetic styles are utterly confused when accented letters are present at the beginning of the name. Do you really need this very old-fashioned method? It was used in the olden times of typewriters, when there was no real way to have a sensible numbering scheme in case of changes to the document during its preparation.
Here's a workaround that however will not guarantee correct sorting if there are names too close to Désarménien.
The filecontents* environment is only used for making the example self-contained.
begin{filecontents*}{jobname.bib}
@Article{Des82,
  author =    {J. {D{es}arm{'e}nien}},
  title =     {Un analogue des congruences de {K}ummer pour les $q$-nombres d'{E}uler},
  journal =   {European J. Combin.},
  year =      {1982},
  volume =    {3},
  number =    {1},
  month =     {},
  pages =     {19--28},
  note =      {},
  annote =    {}
}
end{filecontents*}

documentclass{article}

newcommand{e}{'es}
newcommand{es}{'es}

begin{document}

cite{Des82}

bibliographystyle{amsalpha}
bibliography{jobname}

end{document}

The problem is that the amsalpha style just takes the first three elements of the surname (excluding braces), so in this case you end up with De. Another workaround could be using Des arm'enien, so only es would be needed.

You might use biblatex:
begin{filecontents*}[overwrite]{jobname.bib}
@Article{Des82,
  author =    {J. {D{'e}sarm{'e}nien}},
  title =     {Un analogue des congruences de {K}ummer pour les $q$-nombres d'{E}uler},
  journal =   {European J. Combin.},
  year =      {1982},
  volume =    {3},
  number =    {1},
  month =     {},
  pages =     {19--28},
  note =      {},
  annote =    {}
}
end{filecontents*}

documentclass{article}
usepackage[style=alphabetic]{biblatex}
addbibresource{jobname.bib}

begin{document}

cite{Des82}

printbibliography

end{document}

The style of the references can be tweaked in many ways.

I get Argument of OT1' has an extra } when I have an accents in the last name (macOS, TeXShop)

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