How good was Passporteau?

Passporteau was a good man, indeed. In India, he was the one with the nerve for saving that woman that was going to be consumed by fire as part of an Indian tradition.
But let´s be reasonably ascertain: Very few people in this world is good enough for risking their life in favour of others. I am not saying that this nice French guy is a bad person. I did not even know him (perhaps just Jules Verne can tell). But what I know is that he might had been one of those people in the world that take the risk in order to be famous (or at least, well-seen). Summarizing: he might have been looking for approval. I am sure that people on the 19th century needed approval just as much as us.
For some reason, my mind puts automatically the credit on Phileas Fogg. A man that is just as hard-looking as him, with no signs of feelings of beliefs, needs to have a truly good hearth for risking twenty-thousand pounds for saving another human being.