There's nothing inevitable about the specific sequence of political events that lead to a Napoleonic takeover, not even if a revolution is guaranteed.
Agreed.
A revolution was all but guaranteed. Only hindsight to such a degree that it turns into anachronism has accredited the idea that the french revolution was unavoidable.
The course of events was in fact extremely contingent.
The most decisive factor was the personnality of Louis XVI.
Even the hike in the literacy rate, the conjonctural poor harvests, the archaism of the french fiscal system, were not decisive.
Had the king ordered to use force soon enough and the revolutionary process would have been nipped in the bud the same way as the french Directorate, although extremely corrupt and unpopular, nipped in the bud the royalist attempted uprising in 1795 thanks to young general ... Bonaparte who just used guns against the crowd in the streets of Paris.
France annexing the austrian Nethetlands in 1748 does however not necessarily butterfly away the french revolution. There was a revolutionary movement in the austrian Netherlands that echoed the french one at the same time.
For France to avoid the risk of Revolution for sure, what France needs is a big milkcow. And in the second half of the 18th century, this big milkcow was India.
A decently good french king won't have the structural fiscal crisis of the french monarchy but he may succeed in hangling it.
Any king, french or not, that has control of a large part of India will have the money to avoid the ginancial crisis that led to the revolutionary pressure.
Remember that Clive and the english EIC did just copycat the strategy that had been devised by Dupleix for the french EIC some 15 years earlier.
Next to Louis XVI's personality and incompetence, the most decisive factor in french history and Revolution probably was the decision of the french government to oust Dupleix from the french EIC in 1754.
It was also decisive for all the western civilization.