dysfunctional echo escape

[Pigeon <jah.pigeon@ukonline.co.uk>]

Hi,

man bash (bash-2.01) tells me that echo -e \nnn where nnn is an
octal number should output the character whose ASCII code is nnn.

So, I should get:
$ builtin echo -e \101
A
$

I don't. I get:
$ builtin echo -e \101
101
$

Why?

Pigeon