How was the rise of Napolean not inevitable?

One could argue that nothing in history is inevitable. Historical events come about because of choices that people make, and it's no different in the case of Napoleon. Too many people in Napoleon's time as well as the present day have construed his meteoric rise to power as an inevitability. Napoleon himself was certainly keen to present his rise as irresistible. After all, if something appears destined to happen, then why resist it? Why not just go along with the flow? If Napoleon's rise to power was inevitable, then it was foolish for anyone to defy him. And it was in his interests for people to think that way.
Though there was something quite remarkable about Napoleon's spectacular rise, we must not be misled into thinking that it was inevitable. For one thing, Napoleon didn't grab power by himself; he needed the support of others such as the Abbé Sieyès, for example. They saw in the dashing young general a golden opportunity to bring order and stability to a country lurching from crisis to crisis, without any firm leadership in place.
Without the assistance of such men, Napoleon would never have had a shot at power. He wasn't the instrument of fate or the embodiment of history's unstoppable forces sitting on a white horse; he was the instrument of men who made certain political choices to achieve their own ends. Even when Napoleon finally achieved his coup, it was a touch and go affair, with many of the political elite openly voicing their hostility to his face. At any moment, the whole plot could so easily have collapsed, and with it Napoleon's budding political and military career.