A quote

Grégoire Ponceludon de Malavoy in Ridicule by Patrice Leconte - after seeing his hopes of draining the swamps his peasants die in vanish after he is the victim of a cutting remark deemed "worthy of Voltaire":

[Speaking to the crowd laughing at him]
Children will die tomorrow...
because you ridicule me today.
You envy Voltaire's wit.
He would have wept.
He was ridiculously compassionate.
Whose turn is next?
Who gets lashed with wit so sharp
his whole family reels?
You?
You, perhaps?              
Unless you get the chance
to lash your neighbor first.     

[Turning to the author of the cutting remark]
Monsieur!
Take off your mask!         
We all want to know who coined
''Marquis des Antipodes.''

[Back to the crowd]
I'm going back to my swamps...
where I belong.
I'll build my canals and dikes
I'll dig mud with my bare hands.

Quote extracted from the scripts and transcripts website Script-O-Rama.