diff --git a/mercurial/configitems.py b/mercurial/configitems.py
--- a/mercurial/configitems.py
+++ b/mercurial/configitems.py
@@ -720,11 +720,11 @@
 coreconfigitem('fsmonitor', 'warn_update_file_count',
     default=50000,
 )
-coreconfigitem('help', 'hidden-command\..*',
+coreconfigitem('help', br'hidden-command\..*',
     default=False,
     generic=True,
 )
-coreconfigitem('help', 'hidden-topic\..*',
+coreconfigitem('help', br'hidden-topic\..*',
     default=False,
     generic=True,
 )