Observe the Loyal Son of Ulster. Last night he and his wife, Daphne, were due at the opera for a performance of Le Nozze di Figaro - a satire on French politics heralding the end of an era. This morning he sets off for France and a Somme commemoration of those who knew no fear of death.
Mr Trimble is set to fly out still First Minister of Northern Ireland, and return tomorrow plain leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. The Presiding Officer, Lord Alderdice, might observe strict sabbatarian rules and not read Mr Trimble's letter of resignation until the Assembly convenes on Monday morning. But the trappings of ministerial office are due to begin their graceless fall from the Ulster Unionist leader tonight on the stroke of midnight.
He was intent on going, and the British government - denied any option by the IRA - has seemingly bowed to his determination. Hence, apparently, the absence of any pre-emptive move this week to suspend the Stormont Assembly and other institutions of the Belfast Agreement in an effort to keep Mr Trimble in play.
Assuming nothing happens to avert his resignation in the next few hours, London and Dublin, of course, will still hope to see him restored. The British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, have not accepted the IRA's latest emphatic "No" as the republican movement's final word on decommissioning.
Indeed, Mr Trimble has said he would anticipate re-election as First Minister should the IRA comply with the second deadline - a statutory six weeks which Mr Blair and Mr Ahern have decided means an effective cut-off point at the end of July - which flows inescapably from his first.
In truth, however, Mr Trimble does not expect to resume ministerial office in mid-summer. He does appar ently believe that the IRA will eventually move to put weapons beyond use, because Sinn Fein's political project ultimately requires it. But his best-guess scenario is believed to be predicated on the expectation of a second suspension of the agreement and its institutions, to be followed by a fresh negotiation in the autumn.
At this point we enter into the world of the unknown and the unknowable. For if there is no basis for assuming how the republican movement will respond in the coming month, nor is there any for the assumption that Mr Trimble will still be around to pick up the pieces come September or October.
Not that anybody should be writing him off just yet. "For a dead man walking, he's got a remarkable number of people dancing to his tune", observed one of Northern Ireland's shrewdest commentators the other day - this in reference to the DUP's offer to "resign" its ministers if Mr Trimble's three colleagues also quit the Executive, and to the Taoiseach's decision to place primary responsibility on the republicans to break the political deadlock by moving first on decommissioning.
Having conspicuously refused to dance to Mr Trimble's tune, Mr Blair and Mr Ahern plainly hope that the IRA might now make a move in response to the legislative deadline requiring the election of First and Deputy First Ministers six weeks after a vacancy occurs.
Others in both capitals fear republicans will instead regard the invocation of the statutory deadline as but the consequence of the imposition of Mr Trimble's own ultimatum. Moreover, they point to the worrying evidence of recent days, weeks and months that (as Mr Gerry Adams has, in fairness, always maintained) the public and private positions of the republican leadership have been, and remain, "one and the same".
TWO FACTS shine out from the enveloping gloom. First, for good or ill, unionism has made IRA decommissioning the litmus test of Sinn Fein's democratic bona fides. Second, Sinn Fein - buoyed rather than intimidated by electoral success - has effectively told Mr Trimble, Mr Blair and Mr Ahern to get lost and think again.
The Taoiseach is said to have been shaken by the tone and demeanour of Sinn Fein leaders in the afterglow of their June 7th triumph. This, in turn, is cited in explanation of his hardline decision to abandon the careful policy of never placing the onus on any one party. At their meeting in Downing Street on June 18th, Mr Ahern and Mr Blair are understood to have concluded that a successful resolution of the issues threatening the Good Friday accord would not be found in time to prevent Mr Trimble's resignation. The assessment of the two premiers was also that the situation following Sinn Fein's electoral success was actually worse than they had left it back in March.
In other words, all that talk about votes translating into greater republican flexibility on arms had been so much pie in the sky. What one source describes as the "extraordinary caution" of republican leaders on the weapons issue - which Mr Blair and Mr Ahern well recognise, even if they cannot understand it - was simply unaffected by votes cast for the peace process in West Tyrone or anywhere else.
YES, Mr Adams continued, and continues, to tantalise. In this newspaper on Thursday he rehearsed Sinn Fein's strategy for putting IRA weapons beyond use and again asserted his confidence that the weapons issue "will be successfully resolved".
But that strategy is evidently not for here and now. Not for this moment in history. And certainly not for compliance with any timetable prescribed by a modernising unionist leader now drowning in the bitter denunciations of so many in his own community that he should have taken so much on trust.
So, if they have refused to act to prevent his resignation, will republicans move in the short and potentially explosive weeks remaining to bring Mr Trimble back to political life? Or will they calculate that they need expend no capital on a unionist leader whose days, in any event, might very well be numbered?
Such calculation might well help fulfil the prophecy. If it proves to be so, then we may this weekend be witnessing the end of the current phase of political life and development in Northern Ireland, and the beginning of the end of the Belfast Agreement, at least as we have known it.
Certainly, if the IRA's last word should prove its final riposte (at least for now), it might seem reasonable to assume that the Sinn Fein leadership will have built this possibility into its calculations. Troubled unionists - including some of those most passionately committed to the agreement - are likely to be doing the same.
For some time now - indeed virtually since the 1998 Assembly elections - Mr Trimble has been battling against the reality that a majority of unionists do not in fact consent to the present dispensation in Northern Ireland. He has been fortunate in the quality of his opposition, and in the reluctance even of the Democratic Unionists to lose the devolved dimension of the Good Friday settlement. However, the two governments might be foolish to suppose Mr Jeffrey Donaldson or Mr Peter Robinson - putative leaders in a post-Trimble world of realigned unionism - would or could break faith with their constituency over decommissioning in order to claim the top prize themselves.
No. If Mr Trimble is forced out in the coming months over the failure to secure decommissioning, it is more likely that that lack of unionist consent will be made manifest and explicit - and that a succeeding unionist leader would risk all on a return to the drawing board and a wholesale renegotiation.